


Unexpected (but not Unwelcome)

by NotWeird



Series: OCs For The Ages (RWBY) [4]
Category: RWBY
Genre: AKA Qrow, Aura Science/Magic, Baking as Stress Relief, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lumi is the Best Big Sis, Maiden Religion (sort of?), NO GRIMDARK EDGE ONLY WHOLESOME FAMILY CONTENT, NOT A REHASH OF VOLUME 5, Oscar Gets Adopted (and so does Ozpin), Oscar Pine is Adorable, Protect Oscar Pine 2k19, Touch-Starved, Volume 5 AU, standalone sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2019-10-06 09:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotWeird/pseuds/NotWeird
Summary: Oscar makes it to Mistral and- well, that's it. Qrow's nowhere to be found and now he's stuck in a foreign city with a less than helpful voice in his head and absolutely no money. At least he can always depend on the kindness of strangers- especially since it turns out the kind stranger isn't a stranger at all.[There's no way Oscar found Qrow that soon; standalone sequel to CC.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A year since I posted the last chapter of Cobwebs and Crows, here's the (real) sequel! You don't need to have read CC to understand anything here, but if you're in the mood for a Qrow-centric fanfic, head on over and check it out! This one is going to be fairly Oscar/Ozpin-centric until we hit canon Volume 5 then the cast will expand (obviously) but the focus will still be on our wizardly duo.
> 
> Anyways, please enjoy!

The plan was simple: head to the city of Mistral, meet Qrow at the Black Cat Bar around six, get his (Ozpin's-his-their?) cane and go from there.

The plan could've maybe used a little more forethought.

It started to rain not twenty minutes after he left his aunt's farm, and when he arrived at the train station well over a mile from home, he found out that the little bit of allowance he'd saved up wasn't even close to being enough to pay for a ticket to Mistral. Cold, wet, and seriously considering that he ought to head home before his aunt found the note he left for her to explain his sudden absence, he almost didn't hear the _giant_ coming up behind him. Almost being the key word, because the man (that Ozpin knew and was wary of for some reason unrelated to how _big_ he was) was hard to miss.

Luckily, the tall man only wanted to help him by beating the ticket machine into spitting out a one-way pass then heading out on his merry way. It was good that he hadn't wanted to hurt Oscar, because aside from a few sandwiches, books, and an apple, he had nothing on him of value. He wouldn't make a good punching bag either so… lucky him.

The train left not long after and the trip took a few hours. Too jittery to stay seated for the entire ride, he wandered up and down the aisles and immediately regretted it when they arrived in the city. His first sight of Mistral that wasn't a blurry smudge on the horizon comprised of stairs, stairs, and more stairs.

Great.

"You couldn't have picked a flatter city to meet in?" he grumbled to Ozpin under his breath, careful not to jostle anyone on his way away from the train station. "Or somewhere less busy?!" There were more people on this one street than in all of Yellow Brick.

The wizard hummed without sympathy.

Overcome with the feeling that he really should have packed walking shoes, Oscar sighed and took the first of many flights of stairs on his path to the Black Cat Bar. The place was built in concentric circles, or something that used to be circles but had widened to almost ovals as the population grew, and there wasn't exactly a "direct" path to any one place. Well, unless it was built along the old main roads, but that only connected to itself.

At least the city was pretty. The buildings, built partly into the side of the mountain, were brightly colored and shaped in a sort of box-like fashion with wide porches and swoopy roofs. There was plenty of plant life around too, which did a lot to calm him when the crowds got too pushy. If trees and flowers could survive, then he could make it for at least a day.

The strong, savory scents of a food stall pulled him towards a crowded neighborhood where men and kids crowded every available space. They were dressed normally (well, normally for the city- his neighbors didn't dress like any of these people) while the street was decked out in reds, oranges, and orange-reds. There was a worrying amount of open flames and torches everywhere, but they seemed to lead somewhere and were well out of the way of little hands so he followed the trail.

Past the stalls that lined the street was a tall, circular marble building that was decorated just the same as the street. The top of it was engraved with something that looked almost familiar, held up by two rows of skinny columns. Just as he was about to get closer to investigate, a heavy bell tolled four times and the crowd quieted to a hush aside from soft, rhythmic music.

"What's happening?" he asked, more for himself than anything.

An old man shushed him with a sharp motion. "The Maidens walk among us!"

What? Even Ozpin was confused. Surely the old man didn't mean the Maidens from the fairytale, so…?

Before he could entertain the thought of running for more than a moment, a procession of women turned the corner and the crowd became completely silent.

There were about forty of them, led by a group of four girls dressed in short white outfits with red and orange shawls or sashes (they were really leaning into that color theme weren't they?). The other women ranged in age from a little older than him to elderly, grandmother types. Some wore the white dress that the leading girls wore, only much longer, and others were dressed more casually. The only thing that seemed to unite them were the golden cups they carried and the fact that all of them were barefoot, even the girl in a wheel chair.

The leading group broke away from the larger crowd and circled around the building before coming to a stop in front of a large, almost cone shaped dish with torches in hand. They lowered the torches to the dish as one, and a gout of flames curled into the sky to loud, deafening cheers.

"Come forth!" two of the girls commanded.

"The Maiden lives in the eternal flame!" the other two proclaimed.

He watched, mesmerized, as the women walked up in twos and dumped a cup of wine into the fire, some of them shouting and some of them speaking too softly to be heard. Near as he could figure, they were asking for blessings but from who, he couldn't figure out. (These were definitely _not_ the Maidens Ozpin knew.)

It was over soon after with a short speech and another four bell tolls. Families of the women surged forward with happy cheers and he turned away, the spell broken. Mistral was certainly different from Yellow Brick.

**-[-]-**

Lumi threw her head back in a laugh as her team crushed her in the center of a group hug.

"You were great!" Eve shouted in her ear. "A real Maiden!"

"Tell me you got to try whatever was in the cup," Twila pressed with a gleam in her eye.

"Ooh what did you wish for?" Sahar twined her arm through Lumi's.

"Back up you wolves!" she elbowed her friends with another laugh. "I don't need to suffocate before we get to dinner!"

Eve and Twila took the hint though Sahar stayed on her arm like an escort despite being the shortest of the group. They made their way through the crowded streets up to the fourth level, chattering all the while until they reached the restaurant district. Then began the usual debate of where to eat, what to get, who was going to split what and whether or not a shared appetizer needed certain toppings.

Twila, not one to dawdle, marched towards Blue Jay's when it was clear that Sahar and Eve weren't going to come to a quick decision. Lumi sighed and herded the other two along, not that it stopped their discussion (argument). A waiter sat them and nearly got a backhand to the face when Sahar threw her arms up. He dropped a stack of menus on the table and scurried away before anything worse could happen.

"We are _not_ getting mushrooms on top, they're _disgusting_!" she hissed.

"Well then pick them off," Eve said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"So, Twila, how's your day going?" Lumi ignored the bickering duo.

"Eh," she shrugged. "Woke up, little brother stole my eyeliner, other little brother ate the last doughnut, mom flipped when she saw what I did to my hair." She rolled her eyes. "Same old same old."

"Wait, so that's not another wig?" she flipped to the drink section.

"Nope!" She shook her head, hair ash blonde where before it used to be chestnut brown.

"Nice," she smiled and brushed back a lock of her own dyed hair. "That's such a good color on you."

"At least someone appreciates me," she side-eyed the other half of their team.

"I appreciate you plenty!" Sahar protested. "That's why I suggested we party tonight!"

"Ooh, that sounds fun," Eve set aside her menu, and their drawn out argument. "Where are we headed?"

" _We_ aren't headed anywhere," Lumi cut in before they could get too out of hand. "I have work in the morning."

"Lameee," Twila jeered.

Conversation devolved from there, her friends' arguments in favor of going out growing stronger when Eve pointed out that they'd been a team for nearly a year. Unfortunately for Team ESTL, their one year anniversary wasn't until the fall term started back up and Lumi couldn't be persuaded to show up to work hungover or tired in celebration of _nine_ months together. (Here they argued that a child could be conceived and born in nine months so it was almost like a birthday _therefore_ Lumi **had** to go- but she wouldn't give in.)

"You're all ridiculous," she huffed.

"You know you love us anyways," Sahar leaned her head onto her shoulder.

Lumi rolled her eyes with a smile, no denial on her tongue.

**-[-]-**

Oscar ducked his head, the bartender's hand a heavy weight on his shoulder as he was escorted out. No one matching Qrow's description had been in the Black Cat Bar in over a year, and after asking around he found out that as of a few weeks ago, there were no Hunters in the city _at all_.

"This bodes ill," Ozpin murmured.

 _That_ was putting it lightly. They had **no** money, **no** food, **nowhere** to stay, **no** chance of getting home and now they had **no hope** of finding _any_ Hunters, much less one **who didn't even live Mistral**!

"Let's not panic just yet," he said. "There is somewhere we can go, if you're not averse."

WHERE? And WHY didn't he say anything earlier when they first got to the city?!

"The festival we passed on our way here," he reminded him. "That was a Temple for the Hearth Maiden. They'll likely take you in for the night if you ask."

After the Great War he had taken care to learn more about Mistral's Temples, and this particular one (while under a new name) was known for helping travelers and protecting children- of which Oscar was both.

The boy took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay- but only if you're sure."

He was.

Another deep breath to gather his nerves; they set off. The street lights were on, Oscar's usual cue to be indoors, and he tried to keep what little food was in his stomach in place as he weaved through the loud, possibly tipsy crowds. No one seemed particularly interested in him except to note how young he was- even then they didn't stop him or try to talk, just walked past with a shrug.

That was… odd. If anyone caught him wandering the streets at night back home, they'd escort him back or at the very least make an effort to figure out what he was up to. Here, no one cared (and that was just a little terrifying).

Before he could start to worry that he'd gotten lost and would never find the temple (meaning he'd have to sleep on a park bench somewhere and worry about his backpack though he had nothing of value really- except his life and what if a mugger decided to stab him because he couldn't pay up?) the top of the building peeked out from between two houses. He sighed in relief and hurried closer.

Finally, something was going right.

**-[-]-**

Lumi fell onto the couch with a deep, content sigh. She'd eaten more than her fill at dinner, and after a quick stroll around the neighborhood where Sahar tricked some drunken schmucks into playing her at darts, they grabbed dessert and finally split ways. Her three teammates had gone to get ready for a night out but since she had work in the morning to make up for not going in today, she went home and did a load of laundry.

Boring, yes, but necessary. After the drama and intensity of last summer, she was glad to have a break. She was also glad that whoever was in charge of the local TV station had kept old episodes of House Hunt because the show was mindlessly entertaining and a great way to fill the silence while she folded clothes.

She hummed the theme song and half watched as she stacked a set of matching towels. The couple on screen argued between two different color palettes for the kitchen while the front door rang- wait, the front door? Her teammates were quite clearly out clubbing (they'd tagged her in no less than eight posts) and anyone else who might want to visit her would have texted first. She shook her head, ready to dismiss it, until someone knocked firmly three times, heavy and official.

With a frown she quickly wiped from her face, she rose to answer. "Hello?"

"Good evening miss," a girl (woman? she looked about Lumi's age) greeted and inclined her head. The nervous boy at her side scrambled to mimic the motion. "Is Healer Forhan in?"

"She's away on a pilgrimage, but I'm her apprentice," Lumi relaxed at the title. Rue had mentioned something about being called on by the local Temples at all hours of the night. "How can I help you?"

The other woman was wearing a pleated linen dress with a burnt orange shawl, typical Hearth priestess garb. While the boy had some obvious dust and grime from a long day, nothing about him stuck out as being in desperate need of healing or medicine. He was awfully cute though, especially when his already pink cheeks deepened in color when he caught her eye.

"Oscar is looking for family in the city, a Huntsman," she said and gently motioned him forward. "Would you be willing to shelter him in the meantime?"

Ah, so this was one of _those_.

"Of course," she smiled sympathetically at him. He looked up in surprise and she had the irrational urge to wrap him in a big blanket. "Thank you for bringing him by Sister."

"May your fire burn long," she made the sign of the Hearth Temple.

As was tradition, Lumi returned it with the sign of the Moon Temple. The other woman walked off and she opened the door wider to let the boy- Oscar- in. Standing in the light, he looked tired and a little pale, but the freckles smattered across his face were that much more apparent (gods it was like someone had _designed_ him to be the cutest thing in the room).

"I'm Lumi," she introduced herself with a wave. "If you leave your shoes on the rack, I can show you to a room. Seems like you've had a long day, hm?"

"My name's Oscar," he said, then remembered that the priestess had already introduced him and fumbled with his bootlaces. "A-uhm, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for taking me in."

"No problem," she reassured him and moved away to clean up the piles of folded clothes spread across the couch and coffee table. The space allowed him to relax a smidge, like she figured it would, and she nearly sighed.

So he was one of _those_. Well, at least he wasn't as prickly as she'd been at his age.

**-0-**

Between the living room and kitchen was a set of stairs and a door. The door, as it turned out, hid another set of stairs that went down to a surprisingly big in-law suite with dark hardwood floors and pale blue walls. There was a tiny kitchen (a kitchenette, Ozpin corrected), bathroom, bedroom, and sitting area complete with a TV, a few bookshelves and a striped rug. Like the rest of the house it was decorated with sturdy but plain furniture, yet he got the feeling that even the throw pillows were more expensive than anything he owned and made sure not to touch anything.

Lumi laid down a few ground rules while she gave him a tour, but his attention wandered. (In his defense, it'd been a long day.) From down here, he couldn't even hear the washer upstairs or the show she was watching before he showed up. It made the place seem disconnected from everything in a soothing way, like an oasis of peace in a big, busy city.

Ozpin, thankfully, listened well enough for the both of them and prompted him to respond when she asked questions. It was for that reason that he was sitting at the kitchen island on the main floor with a selection of warm, fragrant leftovers instead of curled up on couch with a stack of books as tall as him.

Apparently he was _starving_ and it must have showed because Lumi pulled out a few more leftovers and settled them within easy reach- oops? He couldn't find it in himself to be too embarrassed, though Ozpin definitely could and chastised him for eating with his gloves on.

"Shut up," he grumbled through a mouthful of chicken stir fry.

Lumi glanced up from her plate of apple slices, head tilted to the side. "Did you say something?"

"Ah," he nearly choked in his haste to swallow. "I said it's good."

"Thanks, dear heart," she accepted the lie easily and smiled in a way that had his stomach in knots. "Say, if you're not too worn from the day, would you mind telling me about who it is you're looking for? I won't be able to really start looking until tomorrow after work, but I can do a bit of light searching in the meantime if I have a name or an ID number," she tucked a wavy bang behind her ear.

He rattled off Ozpin's ID, realized the problem that might cause then quickly added, "Ah, but he's not the one I'm looking for actually."

She frowned at that.

"He has- _had_ a best friend that's supposed to come to Mistral to give me his weapon," he averted his eyes and rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. "I just don't know when he'll get here since he's from Vale."

"What's his name?" she leaned forward with a sympathetic expression. "I used go to Beacon; I might know him."

He looked up at that. Ozpin didn't recognize her like he had with the man at the train station, but she was young enough that she could have easily graduated within the last couple of years and come into contact with any number of other Hunters.

"Qrow," he said with a wave of familiarity that wasn't his own.

Lumi reared back. "What."

"Qrow Branwen?" he tried again. The look on her face was _not_ promising and Ozpin readied himself to take control if a fight broke out. "Uh, my uncle was named Ozpin if that helps…"

She stood abruptly. "I need to go- lay down. Enjoy your meal," she hurried away, frantically typing on her Scroll.

… Just what had he gotten himself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you lovely readers enjoyed! I have the next four chapters written so they just need a polish before I post them- expect an update once a week. Also, I know some people are iffy about OC teams, and while Lumi has one (because it'd be really weird if she didn't) they don't play a /huge/ role so I hope that soothes any concerns you might have.
> 
> Please leave a review if you liked the chapter, even if it's just to keyboard smash your feelings out. Heaven knows I do that often enough, haha :) See you next week!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!
> 
> Summary so far: Oscar made it to Mistral, met up with Lumi, and discovered that despite being total strangers they have a friend in common.

Lumi exchanged the overripe fruit on the altar for a fresher selection and side-eyed the Luna statue with contempt. She wasn't exactly sold on the whole Maiden religion thing, or on religion in general, but a no-name farm boy showing up on her doorstep on the day of the Hearth Maiden festival, escorted by a priestess directly to _her_ while looking for _her_ friend reeked of the sort of divine intervention she'd only ever read about in myths.

Naturally, since their convenient meeting could only have been set up by meddling spirits, everything about Oscar targeted her weakest points without mercy. He was cute, shy, and polite; had big innocent eyes and a permanent flush to his round, freckled cheeks. Roughly the same age as her sister and with a few signs she knew she'd given off at his age, everything about him just – Lumi was so **screwed**. There'd been no way she could ever turn him away, even without taking into account the fact that he was so connected to her through a close mutual friend.

She shot the statue one last look then recited a short prayer and closed the glass cabinet that housed it all. Her weekly obligation fulfilled, she grabbed her lunch from the counter and dug in while her Semblance settled throughout the house.

There were empty, unmoving shadows upstairs, in the pantry, beneath the floorboards, and the barest slivers of dark behind paintings, all consistent with an empty house. She focused on the downstairs suite and sighed in relief at the lack of Oscar's presence- not that she hated or resented him or anything, but a thirty minute lunch break wasn't nearly enough time to explain four years' worth of history about her relationship with Branwen and the Headmaster and he really deserved an explanation after last night.

She finished up one last bite then cleaned up, half-hearted plans to talk to the boy in the back of her mind. Gods, what was she even going to say?

**-[-]-**

Oscar marveled over the beautiful waterfall and gorgeous landscape. A lush valley carved by the river led out of the city through stepped plains and on towards Lake Matsu, which could have been an ocean if he didn't know better. The air was cool and fresh this high up, even though it was getting to be the hottest part of the day and he felt his stress from the last few weeks dissolve away.

He wasn't crazy, because not only did Lumi know Ozpin, she also knew Qrow and that validated both men's existence. He wasn't worried about where he was going to sleep or when he was going to eat, again because of Lumi, and now he was perched at one of the highest points in the city, as normal as any tourist.

Well, mostly.

"It would be wise to head back," Ozpin murmured, equally soothed by the peaceful sights but a stickler for responsibility.

Sure, Oscar understood _why_ the other man was so eager to get some answers out of Lumi, but she was at work and besides- they were in Mistral! The capital of one of the Four Kingdoms! One of the oldest cities in the world! He'd only ever read about the place before, hoping but never believing he'd ever make it here, and now he was here!

(There was something to be said about reincarnating into such a young host. Despite the benefits of no longer dreading storms and aching joints, the drawback was that Oscar didn't _quite_ understand the severity of the situation due to his peaceful and [comparatively] sheltered life. While he didn't wish the boy to lose all innocence, he did wish he'd heed his advice a little more seriously.)

They toured the upper levels (except for Haven Academy, which was closed for some reason- maintenance?) then finally made their way back to the house around four. After a full day of exploring (and all those awful stairs) he was hungry and looking forward to a nice, hot shower. He quickly re-ordered his priorities to be a shower then a meal when a passing stranger sniffed at him and recoiled. (The joys of puberty.)

When he stepped out of the bathroom, a soft green towel around his shoulders (he didn't know that they made towels that fluffy!), the sounds of Lumi moving about upstairs were clear to the both of them. She must have just gotten home, and while he normally wouldn't bother someone who hadn't had the chance to unwind yet, Ozpin assured him that it would ensure her answers were more honest. (Why wouldn't she be honest to begin with? She didn't seem like a shady person.) He grabbed an apple on his way up to the kitchen.

"Hi Lumi," he sat at the island, careful not to lean onto the countertop or slouch. The slick, chrome finishes and marble counters looked straight out of a magazine, but she looked at ease surrounded by expensive- well, _everything_ \- in a way that he didn't.

"Hey Oscar," the violet-eyed woman looked up with a small smile. "Did you have a good day?" She was busy pulling things from the fridge and cabinets but made it obvious that she was focused on him too.

(Oscar liked the attention; it made him feel important. Ozpin batted that aside and began to skillfully direct his answers.)

"Yeah. I explored a little bit- I didn't know Mistral was so big! I think I only got to see this level and the one above it- it was hard to tell because there's no signs."

"I had trouble navigating when I first got here too," she reassured him. "If you stay in this slice of the city, then directly above us are some Council buildings and directly below us are stores. This level is mostly housing, but there's a hospital to the right and a park to the left so if you ever get lost, you can head to either and backtrack home."

"Really? That's so useful," he rolled the apple between his palms. "Say, what's at the top? I tried to go look but apparently it's closed off."

"Ah, that's Haven Academy. The school's headmaster shut it down for the summer so the teachers could relieve some of the Hunters at the borders. The campus is nice to visit, but I think everyone's happier to have the teachers out helping- well, everyone except the students anyways."

"Why wouldn't the students be happy?" he munched on his apple. "Are they that close to their professors?"

"Well, _Academy students_ need _Academy approval_ to go on missions over school breaks," she explained and transferred diced chicken to a metal bowl. "With everyone who could give that approval gone or temporarily barred from work, the only one left is Professor Lionheart and he's busy enough without adding that on top."

"Oh wow, how do you know all that-" he blocked out Ozpin's warnings. "-do you work at the school? Are you a secretary there?"

Lumi, with oil, raw chicken, and seasoning stuck to her hands, paused and looked at him with a confused frown. "… just how old do you think I am?"

He glanced at her nice work clothes (a short sleeved button down, uniform vest, and pencil skirt), matched it with Ozpin's mental concept of an office worker, and the sense of Grown-ness she carried that all adults seemed to have then said: "Twenty six?"

All of the energy went out of her frame and any emotion she might have had fled with it. The only thing expressive about her were her eyes, which were turned towards the ceiling as if looking for strength from the universe. "I turned twenty in the spring."

He winced and felt his shoulders rise to his ears while his other half shook his head. "Sorry."

She sighed heavily and continued stirring the mixture by hand. He fidgeted with his apple core and tried to think of a way to salvage the conversation but to no avail. Ozpin might have had some ideas, but clearly since _Oscar_ knew what he was doing then the wizard need not get involved. (That would teach him.)

Lumi turned, washed her hands in the sink to the left of the stove, then began to rinse vegetables. He chewed the corner of his lip and refrained from bouncing his leg with willpower he didn't know he had.

"… So how was work?" he ventured.

"It was fine," she didn't look at him and didn't see the way his head jerked dangerously close to the counter in frustration.

"Uh, so… where do you work actually?" he shifted in place.

This time she did look at him, unamusement clear across her face. "Marron's Tailor Shop."

Her tone told him that she must have said so yesterday… when he wasn't listening. (Ozpin remembered. He pointedly raised a brow and turned away when Oscar began to quietly plead for _help_. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that…)

"Th-that's cool," his voice cracked and he wanted to throw himself down the stairs.

Her shoulders rose and fell in what might have been a sigh, might have been a laugh. "That's very kind of you to say, dear heart, but I somehow get the feeling that the questions you really want to ask are about your uncle, hm?"

His face felt like it was on fire. "Y-yeah."

She shook her head with a wry grin and dried her hands. "What do you want to know? I can't tell you as much as Branwen- _Qrow_ could, but I know a little."

"What was he like?" he (finally) listened to Ozpin's advice. "I never really… met him."

"Well in terms of looks," she leaned against the counter. "He was quite tall, and pale, with feathery grey hair and these tiny, useless sunglasses." She motioned with her fingers and smiled back at him when he grinned. "He wore a lot of green three piece suits- Qrow told me he had at least eight variations of the same outfit."

(Ozpin was suspicious of the fact that she knew such small details about him but he couldn't remember anything about her. Her name seemed a little familiar, but he couldn't place it among his or Qrow's contacts.)

"Hm, what else… oh yes; he loved hot chocolate, like, _really_ loved it. Almost as much as he loved pulling one over on everyone and letting the rumor that he drank as much coffee as Oobleck persist. I'm pretty sure one of the school nurses yelled at him for 'setting a bad example for the students' but since it wasn't really coffee and nothing could be done about it. He also had a weakness for milk-bread, but that wasn't nearly as bad as his cocoa-addiction."

"Wait, if you're so young, how do you know that?" He couldn't help but lean forward onto the counter. "Did Qrow tell you?"

"No, I was a student at Beacon for a while before I moved here," she stood and resumed cooking. "At one point I worked a summer as an intern; first for Doctor Oobleck then… well, I think technically it was still to Oobleck. Who knows though- things were pretty hectic at the time with Vytal Festival preparations."

Ozpin could attest to the chaos of that summer, though he hadn't unraveled all of his memories yet. Trying to recall specific moments from then was like flipping through an old photo album and trying to pinpoint a certain picture without looking at the page or checking the section of the album. However, her age and that line narrowed down what year or team she could have been on and went a ways to soothing his (paranoia) _curiosity_.

She shrugged. "I ended up being your uncle's secretary of sorts, but it worked out alright. He was very kind to me."

"Oh so you guys were friends?" he felt relief swoop through him.

"Uh," she tucked her bangs behind an ear and fidgeted with a knife, all previous nonchalance gone. "Not… exactly…"

"What do you mean?" Confusion took the place of his short-lived relief.

"I… respected him… mostly," she wouldn't turn around as she chopped vegetables. "And I'm sure he… well, that is… he was very kind, like I said… probably too kind? Er, that is… look," she sighed and glanced at him. "I was a spiteful, argumentative little brat and I'm surprised he didn't kick me out of school. Let's leave that alone until we find Qrow, and I'm sure he'll be happy to tell you all sorts of fun stories."

That… wasn't at all what he- or Ozpin- was expecting. To begin with, Lumi had been all smiles and helpful gestures, up to the point where he told her he was looking for Qrow. Even then, she hadn't seemed upset, just bewildered, and _that_ didn't stop her from answering all of his questions despite him sticking his foot in his mouth about her job and age. Just what had happened between her and Ozpin that she respected and yet didn't get along with him? And why couldn't Ozpin remember who she was if they had that sort of friction in their relationship?

It felt like every time he turned around his life got more and more complicated.

While turned all of her focus onto cooking, he slunk downstairs to talk with Ozpin and hoped that this conversation, at least, wouldn't throw him any more curve-balls.

**-[-]-**

Dinner started off a little awkward, but eased when Oscar gathered the courage to ask Lumi about life as a Huntress (which she was sure he was dying to know about considering that he'd traveled all the way to Mistral for the chance at being trained). She had to carefully edit her story (child abuse wasn't exactly a fun topic and she figured he could relate based off how jumpy he was), but a few questions about him (why did he want to be a Huntsman anyways? Just because his uncle had been?) and they were off.

By the time she crawled into bed, she felt her earlier prediction ring true; she was completely screwed and never stood a chance against the adorable might of Oscar Pine. That was okay though, because the boy was so earnest and wore his every thought on his face that when things he didn't want to talk about popped up, it was easy to tell. Not that she would use that against him (because she wasn't a horrible person) but it'd make it simple to avoid difficult topics.

That in mind, she fell into a restful sleep and woke the next morning refreshed. After a languid stretch, she made some coffee and downed a shot of Rue's Anti-Plant antidote. It tasted like liquid earwax and drain cleaner mixed with burnt sugar which left her stomach in knots, but when she made her way to the greenhouse and didn't die upon entry she counted it as a win as she did every time she managed to survive.

It shouldn't have been something to celebrate, but Rue wasn't some fussy old woman who grew prized roses and entered her yard into home and garden contests. No, she grew medicinal plants and poisons in equal measure and it was only thanks to the Anti-Plant that Lumi could walk around to tend the horrid little things. (She called them horrid but some of them could be used to make a variety of useful teas and remedies, like the poppies to the right of the center table. Others, however, were accidental murder waiting to happen despite how pretty they looked.)

She made it upstairs and into the shower without spreading any poisonous plant oils thanks to her shadow-walking semblance, though when she walked downstairs and saw Oscar eating a bowl of cereal she had the irrational urge to wash her hands again just to make sure.

"Morning," she called.

He swallowed quickly. "Morning!"

"Any plans today, dear heart?" she washed her hands and set the day old rice in the cooker to reheat.

"Uh no, not really," he said, stirring his cereal. "What about you?"

"I'm tutoring at one, but I'll probably clean to pass the time." The floors needed to be swept desperately and she was running low on detergent, so all in all it looked to be a tame day.

"Tutoring?" he parroted.

"Yeah, a cousin of a friend wants to be a Healer," she explained and dumped up a container of leftover beef and broccoli into a pan. "They're paying and it's good practice for me too." She certainly wouldn't have memorized all 206 bones if she didn't have to quiz Chrom on it _that_ was for sure.

He nibbled his lower lip in thought as she broke up the cold clumps of beef. "Say, Lumi, um…"

"Hm?" she inclined her head.

"Would it… would it be alright if I sat in?" he traced patterns in the marble with a finger. "I can't pay or anything but I could help you clean?" he chanced a glance at her, wide hazel eyes like an arrow straight through her heart.

"Uh sure, if you want," he did hear her say _Healer_ and not _Hunter_ right? "I don't know how much you'll get out of it though. Is your aura activated?"

"Yeah!" he perked up.

"Show me," she set aside the spatula and turned to him.

He did, though it took a solid minute and he had to close his eyes to concentrate. A dense, dark green shimmered over his form and brought out the amber in his irises when he stared at her expectantly. (The same amber as the Headmaster, she noted, an almost golden brown.)

"Good job," she smiled. That was fairly quick considering that most beginners took anywhere from a solid half hour to five minutes, and that was _after_ intense meditation. To be able to do it on command (or what passed as on-command for someone as young as him) was impressive.

He beamed at her, then seemed to remember that they'd only known each other two and a half days and ducked his head.

"I think it'd be better for you to work on a few activation exercises since Chrom is a bit further along," she said and tucked a bang behind her ear. "But there's no reason you can't be in the yard with us."

"Okay," he looked ready to get started at that exact moment, breakfast be damned.

Unfortunately for him, all she had in her stomach was a cup of coffee and a shot of Anti-Plant, so it'd be a while until then. She seated herself at the island (he seemed to favor it over the table for some reason- maybe it made him feel tall?) and unfurled her Semblance throughout the house. Aside from the warm, flickering ember of Oscar's aura to her left, the shadows remained as empty and still as they always were.

If she focused, she could feel the curiosity radiating off him, but he didn't pester her with questions like last night and shortly after excused himself. For once they hadn't ended a conversation on an awkward, abrupt note. She let out a silent sigh of relief when she heard him clomp down the stairs (he'd need training on how to walk quietly- but that was Branwen's job) and fixed another cup of coffee to go with the rest of her breakfast.

Lumi hoped Branwen made it to Mistral soon, because otherwise she was going to adopt Oscar and convince him to take up healing instead of hunting. It probably wouldn't be that hard considering that he was already interested in joining her tutoring session with Chromatica… Well, except for the fact that her damn near omniscient Headmaster was likely still as all-knowing as a spirit and she definitely didn't need to be haunted for leading the man's nephew astray.

**-[-]-**

The early stages of Huntsman training and Healer training weren't all that different, Oscar was sad to say.

Ozpin had urged him not to practice activating his aura on his own because he might exhaust himself without knowing it, and Lumi had the same advice. Ozpin said that the earliest stages required a calm, steady mind to maximize focus, and Lumi said the same thing. Ozpin told him that he needed to work his body and strengthen it to help that focus, and whaddya know, Lumi agreed.

Which was why he was doing a set of thirty lunges in the garden with two five pound dumbbells in hand, then thirty push-ups, then thirty crunches, a few cool-down laps around the garden, then three minutes of meditation followed by two minutes of activating his aura as many times as he could- all of that was then repeated. Twice. At least.

_I thought training would be cooler than this_ , he grumbled and felt his knee wobble as he forced out another lunge.

_Hm, yes well_ , he could feel the wizard's amusement, _the reality of training to be a Huntsman is less glamorous than it is often portrayed_.

He wheezed and fell into push-up position, legs screaming. It wasn't that he was completely weak or out of shape (farm work was good for building up useful muscles) but it was getting to be the hottest part of the day and it was made hotter by the humidity of the grass and he'd never had such low reserves of aura before and-

"Oscar!" Lumi shouted from the shaded porch.

He tried to lift his head to look at her but he'd collapsed face-first onto the grass while doing a push-up and that just wasn't happening. A set of cool hands rolled him over and poured water over his hair, which felt great even as his body freaked out about the dramatic difference in temperature. Off went his gloves and his wrists got the same treatment of cool, cool water- then his whole body was dunked in ice and his back settled on the wood floor of the porch.

"-ke note of the tell-tale signs of aura shock," Lumi's voice came from above as she rattled off a list of symptoms that perfectly described what he felt. A warm hand, different from the way his blood burned, settled over his eyes and lightened the metal in his limbs. It was easier to breathe and after a moment of basking in the feeling, he felt like he could easily finish the work out and then some.

"-eeds to circulate for at least two minutes?" Chromatica asked.

"Correct," the hand moved from over his brows to his left temple and his eyes fluttered open. "Check to see how dilated his pupils are- and make sure they're equally wide or we'll need to take him into emergency care."

A head of fluffy yellow-white hair entered his field of vision, moved from one side to the other then back again. "Woah, you can barely see his eyes!" Her wings fluttered.

She hummed and he felt it in his teeth (?). "Are they even at least?"

"Yup," another check. "Completely even."

"Good," she sighed. "Go grab a Croq-Aid and a banana for me, please."

The slightly older girl scrambled to her feet. "You got it boss!"

He could feel (?!) her smile and Ozpin's worry like a physical thing- well, _more_ physical than usual. When Chrom came back with the requested items, Lumi helped him sit up and that gentle warmth vanished, replaced only by the mild soreness in his muscles and the half-damp feeling of sweat drying in his borrowed clothes.

Gross.

Chrom, who looked way better than he felt at the moment despite doing _double_ the work-out, was then allowed to go home with cheery praise from Lumi about how well she'd done and a reminder to work on "the dot exercise."

He, on the other hand, was made to sit through a lecture about how disappointed Lumi was in him and how he should have known better than to keep going when he was so tired. Hadn't his previous teacher (who didn't actually exist but that was what he called Ozpin to explain away his knowledge and get out of the _very_ beginner stuff) ever taught him about proper pacing? She followed it up with complimenting the things he'd done well then wrangled a promise out of him that he'd take breaks when he needed it in the future- and if he _didn't_ then she'd let him suffer the next bout of muscle cramping and aura shock.

Oscar felt like his ears were on fire but Ozpin was completely unbothered. Either through his yet-remembered acquaintance with her or by virtue of knowing people similar to her over many lifetimes, the fact that she took the care and safety of anyone younger than her _this_ seriously was as unsurprising as the fact that the greenhouse was off-limits because it grew poisons. Besides, Oscar had been careless in pushing himself so hard and would find no sympathy from him.

**-[-]-**

Lumi changed her mind about helping out Oscar- instead, she was going to drown him in the closest body of water and claim oh, he didn't know how to swim, officer; and oh it was so tragic…  


Granted, his blatant disregard for personal safety had happened _yesterday_ but still- that was the sort of behavior that needed to be beaten out of students early on. Otherwise he'd end up like those idiots who practically lived in the school's infirmary because they kept depleting their aura and not resting when advised, _Nitram, Rein and Maril_. 

She shook her head to clear it. Oscar wasn't nearly as bad as those three (and if she had her way, he was never going to be). For one, he was actually sorry and for two, she didn't catch him trying to mess around with his aura after she told him to rest up. Just from that small show of non-idiocy he was leagues better than three-fourths of team MRNN; which was just sad because a fourteen year old shouldn't be able to win a maturity contest against three adults. 

Disparaging thoughts about the next graduating class of Hunters aside, she was at work and she needed to focus on not stitching her fingers to the hem of the bridal silk- again- or her boss was going to put her back on front-desk duty. 

An hour later, Lumi stepped back to admire her handiwork and stretched out her cramping fingers. The stitching on the hem was practically invisible, which was the goal, and the only thing left to do would be to add the beadwork to the bodice. Marron would, of course, oversee that part because it was his specialty, so she patted herself on the back and trotted over to the break room for lunch. Aeron and Midori were already there when she walked in, and Aeron sighed at the sight of her. 

"Guess my break's over," he said and offered up his seat (not that there were any other seats to take aside from the broken chair in the corner but he was a gentleman). 

"Good luck," Midori smiled mischievously. "Mr. Salmone's coming in for a fitting in twenty." 

Lumi popped her lunch in the microwave, the faintest stirrings of sympathy in her heart, then sat while Midori laughed at his long-face. No one like Mr. Salmone because he was demanding and nit-picky. Marron was the only one who could handle him but he was busy with beadwork for a completely different set of orders so Aeron sucked it up and marched to the gallows as brave as any Huntsman. 

"How was the play?" she asked when the other woman had calmed. Midori had a lot to say, especially about the costume designs, and the rest of lunch was filled with informative but slightly useless chatter. 

They parted ways, Midori and Aeron to do fittings and consultations while Lumi flitted between the front and dressing rooms to help out as needed, then she went home at four since she was only a part-timer, to her co-workers half-hearted complaints. 

The mail came shortly afterwards, and with it a letter. Since, it read, "Sister Forhan" had already accepted and RSVP'ed to the Summer Solstice Banquet being held at the Moon Maiden Temple next Thursday, Rue had _better_ be there or else Micah would **personally** sign her up for the Winter Solstice Retreat in Argus- which they would have to walk through the snow to reach in order to truly put into practice their Temple teachings. Tucked behind the letter was a stiff piece of heavy cardstock with the actual invitation/reminder, covered liberally in blood-red ink with repeats of threats from the letter. 

… she was going to have a _long_ conversation with Rue about this when the woman returned from her pilgrimage. A _very_ long talk, possibly ending in her drowning in the same body of water she was going to throw Oscar into earlier. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oho Lumi, what's up with you and Ozpin? ;) Also @ Oscar: lol. Someone help the poor boy out, he's never had to interact with people before. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you lovely readers enjoyed! Please review, it keeps me motivated :)
> 
> See you next week!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary so far: Oscar makes to Mistral and meets a friend of a friend. He explores, learns a little bit about Ozpin and Lumi, and ends up with more questions than when he started. He also starts training his aura and it's An Experience. Lumi plots murder.

In the week and a half he'd been there, life had settled into a comfortable routine for Oscar. He: woke up, had breakfast, had a second breakfast when Lumi came downstairs, did some morning exercises (including ones with aura if Lumi had time to supervise), read a little (or a lot if it was a good book), took a walk around the neighborhood and/or left entirely to explore, came back in time for Lumi to get off work, did more exercises, snacked, snacked again while she cooked, had dinner, and hung out then went to bed.

So with such a busy schedule, it was weird that he found himself bored one day while she was out at work. Actually, it was weird that she _was at work_ considering that it was Wednesday and her schedule ran Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. Weirder still was the fact that she wasn't home yet because the mail came already and the hour hand was closer to five than four and-

"-ing to hem her jacket so it never sits right again!" Lumi hissed, a long bag on a hanger over her shoulder. "Sleeves too, that bi- uh, hi Oscar." She turned at the last second and saw him sitting at the kitchen island.

"Hi," he didn't _hear_ the door open… did he? (Ozpin didn't and was suspicious, but he was always suspicious because for all that Lumi knew about him, he _still_ had yet to remember her even with her freely given clues. Granted, most of his memories were dedicated to various contingency plans and information about key persons, but it was unsettling nonetheless.)

"So… uh, I'm not really in the mood to cook tonight and I thought we could order it," she grabbed a stack of take-out menus from a drawer and laid it on the counter. "Let me know what you want, I'll just be upstairs dealing with," she motioned to the garment bag. " _This_."

He nodded and walked her walk up the stairs, the plastic swishing and crinkling with every step. That was… weird.

He shook his head, too relieved that nothing horrible had happened to the woman to focus on it, and picked through the menus- only to toss them down when he saw the numbers written off to the side. How could anyone afford to eat with prices like that!? He'd rather have cereal and toast for dinner than make Lumi spend that much money!

His mind was still whirling when she came back down the stairs, out of her work clothes and into something comfortably faded from constant wear. "What'd you decide on?"

"…"

"Oscar?" she frowned and glanced at the semi-neat stack.

"… how do you afford anything?" he mumbled.

"I have a job," she said slowly. "Two, actually- wait, why do you care all of a sudden?"

"I didn't know food was so expensive!" his hands made a muted thud where they slammed against the counter.

"Uhm, yeah," Lumi pursed her lips and walked closer. "I mean, these are fairly cheap places-" he choked and she internally winced (wrong thing to say). "-but I can see why you'd think so."

" _These_ are cheap?" he paled, wide eyes even wider.

"Y-es," she filled a glass with water and set it in front of him. "I know it might seem like a lot, but that's probably because you're young and you don't have the same experience with budgeting or bills- not that there's anything wrong with that, of course." She comforted him with a warm hand to his shoulder. "You should enjoy not having to worry about that just yet; let me handle the bills."

He buried his face in his hands, a running total of all the food he'd eaten and things he'd used in his head (that bag of clothes in his size!). "I'm never going to be able to pay you back."

That wasn't even counting the lessons on aura and constant questions he sent her way. (Ozpin was the one with money and his savings were tied up in Vale or with Qrow who wasn't even in the city and Oscar didn't have enough money for a _train ticket_ and-)

"Well you don't _need_ to, so," she cut off his mental ramblings with a shrug. "Try not to think about it. I didn't take you in for that reason."

"But-!" his head jerked up and nearly smashed into her face (when had she gotten so close?).

"Oscar, darling, _dear heart_ ," she met his frantic gaze with her calm, confident one. "You're not even old enough to get a part-time job; don't worry about the money. I took Temple vows to help people, and even if I didn't, I still wouldn't charge you for this. Please accept that I want to do this out of the goodness of my heart. And if that's not enough for you, consider my taking care of you to be repayment for how your uncle took care of me."

"That's different," he argued. "Ozpin's a professor, he's supposed to take care of students."

"He was, but he also helped me out in ways that just 'a professor' wouldn't," she countered. " _'A professor'_ would have suspended me for getting into places I shouldn't have been. Instead, I was put on shelving duty in the library for a few hours and asked to pick up a book he ordered."

"Wait, where did you go that you weren't supposed to?" he jumped on the new information.

"That's not important," she leaned back with a grimace. "The point is, your uncle was kind to me and I'd like to help you in return; I honestly, truly do."

"If…" he fidgeted with his hands. "I mean… I guess, if it's not too much for you…"

"It's not," she assured him with smile as warm as her hand on his.

"Okay…" he glanced at the take-out menus. "But I'd still like to help out with chores or something. I feel bad about not doing anything."

"That's fine," she said. "Now, what are we going to eat? I was thinking…"

**-[-]-**

Lumi took her time getting ready. Her shoes had to be inspected twice for stains or scuffs, her nails touched up then examined with a magnifying glass, her clothes looked over with a fine tooth comb for any weak seam or loose thread- and when she'd exhausted all the ways to waste time in the name of "making sure" her outfit was ready, she texted the group chat to get her team's opinions on how to wear her hair and do her make-up (the latter of which was useless because there was only one acceptable way to paint her face for the night).

It was, perhaps, excessive, but she was going into the heart of a Temple with the barest of knowledge about Luna, the Moon Maiden, and even less faith than that about the validity of the Maidens as divine beings. In short, she was a _fraud_ and if anyone found out then vow of pacifism or not, Rue was going to _kill her_.

Not that Rue was without blame, however, since it'd been her _great idea_ to accept an invitation for an event she _knew_ she wouldn't be in town for. And it'd been her idea to take on Lumi as her apprentice through the Temple so she could stop getting harassed about not fulfilling her duties. Of course, Lumi had been dumb enough to go along with it and not think too hard about the consequences because she wanted to learn more Healing than what was allowed outside of a Healer program but…

Ugh, but nothing. This was her fault too and now she was going to have to fake an honest devotion for a few hours then pull out some half-remembered prayers to help ensure that she was done with Temple business until Rue came back in two months.

With one last sigh, she touched up the silver paint in the center of her forehead, grabbed her tiny drawstring purse and descended the stairs. Her silk flats had _no grip_ and she wished, not for the first or last time that night, that she could've worn her boots. Aside from the fact that they were much sturdier, they also had gravity dust crystals in the heels which were useful in so many different ways. Still, she persevered and made it to the kitchen with minimal cursing. Just as she raised a cup of water to her lips, the back door swung open and she turned on instinct, ready to chuck the glass if need arose. Fortunately for her nerves, it was only Oscar.

"Lumi?" he leaned back on one leg, brow raised and head tilted (cutely) in evaluation.

"Yes dear heart?" she tried not to be offended that he didn't immediately recognize her.

"What're you doing?" he relaxed and trotted closer, looking over her get-up like an abstract art piece.

"Going to a banquet," damn Rue. "How do I look?"

"Like a statue," he said then seemed to reconsider his words half a second too late. "I mean-!"

She grinned wryly. The top half of her face was painted a flat grey and if she hadn't bucked tradition by using eyeliner and mascara to make her eyes stand out, she really would have looked like a statue.

"A very pretty statue?" he tried to correct.

"It's fine," she waved him off. "That's sort of the point."

"Oh," he fidgeted with his hands. "Are you going to be gone long?"

"Two hours, maybe," it depended how quickly she could make nice with Rue's friends and Sisters, especially Micah. "If I can, I'll bring you home something. Though since it's a Temple, I'm not sure what it'll be."

"You don't have to go out of your way!" his (cute, adorable, round little freckled) cheeks flushed red. "I don't need anything!"

Just for that she was going to get him **two** somethings.

"Hm, alright," she lied and downed her water. "Wish me luck then."

"Good luck," he looked like he wanted to hug her or pat her shoulder like she often did to him but his hands remained stubbornly by his sides.

Her (useless, frail, flimsy) flats nearly caused her to slip as she walked out then stepped through a wide patch of shadows, but she remained somehow upright and drew on Rue's teachings to keep her emotions under control. The Moon Maiden preached serenity and acceptance and the quickest way to out herself would be to start throwing a tantrum because she didn't like her shoes [she wasn't even that upset over the shoes, but her nerves were making her irritable].

Inner calm achieved, she took the stairs around the back of the temple and produced the heavily annotated invitation when a pair of Sisters asked for it. They shared a glance but let her through- apparently Micah and Rue's rivalry was well known.

The gardens were lovingly maintained and bursting with color, the air thick but not cloying with the scent of blossoms. The tables and decorations only added to the natural beauty with artfully arranged flower and willow branch centerpieces and simple linen tablecloths. She just wished she could have said the same for herself because every Sister she saw had unpainted faces save for the silver triple-moon symbol on their foreheads and wore grey/white outfits- unlike her half grey face and navy blue/white clothes… well, time to say fuck it.

She readied a shadow to take her home (Temple duties be damned, she wasn't going to make a spectacle of herself just because two old women held a grudge) but then caught sight of another girl dressed the exact same as she was and paused. An older woman walked up, dressed in blue and black with her face painted entirely white, and she caught the word "master" before she tucked away her Semblance and smoothed a hand over her skirts.

Ahem.

Lumi shoved her overreaction aside and continued to calmly, serenely, _elegantly_ stroll around the gardens. Not long after she was stopped by a Sister asking where her Master was, and when it was revealed that Healer Forhan (damn Rue) was away on a pilgrimage, she was then escorted to a cluster of other girls (which included the one she'd seen earlier).

Well, she said _girls_ but they looked around her age if not a little older so she probably ought to call them _young women_ even if it sounded old and stuffy.

A round of introductions started up in the group of _young women_ and she didn't hesitate to mimic their speech. "I'm Lumi Hazelwood, Apprentice to Healer Rue Forhan."

Weird enough, no one called their mentors "master" except in reference and used the title Healer instead. They also all had feathers and beads in their hair hanging from a hair pin, which Lumi didn't and it was the cause of a few pitying looks. One of them tutted that it was cruel of Forhan (did no one ever use first names?) to leave her so early on while another pointed out that fresh initiates were better off staying close to the Temple.

If she lasted past dinner she was going to consider it a miracle.

**-[-]-**

Lumi stumbled into the house, glowing (?), and threw herself onto the couch beside Oscar. Her long white skirts were bunched into one hand like she'd been running and her shoes were in the other, mud and grass stuck to the bottom.

"If I never have to go back it'll be too soon," she huffed, as curled around him as she could be without laying on him.

"What happened?" he poked at the lines on her arms (runes? writing?). "And why are you all glowy?" Also, he didn't hear the door open- again.

"It was my first Summer Solstice so there was a ceremony with Clear Dust," she said and directed aura down her arms to make the marks shine. "But Oscar, it was _terrible_."

"How?" he scooted closer at her tone, brows upturned with worry.

"Everyone there kept giving me these _looks_ like oh, poor little Apprentice, she must be so upset, how could her Master leave her like that, oh but traveling's dangerous for an Initiate, and-!" she threw her arms in the air. "I don't care! I'm a Huntress! But I had to nod my head and pretend like I was _really_ upset that Rue was off exploring the kingdom while I'm stuck in the city because apparently I'm too untrained and fragile to go anywhere!"

Ozpin could understand why a Huntress would be so upset at the implications. Oscar, on the other hand, merely nodded along, unclear why she needed comfort but willing to offer it anyways.

"It was so annoying! I get enough shit from my mom's side of the family without adding fifty strangers to the mix!" she made a motion like she was going to choke somebody and he tentatively patted her shoulder. Her frame relaxed almost immediately as she turned and slumped onto her back.

"Um, it sounds like they really care about you," he consoled. "And I'm sure if they knew you better they'd have more confidence in you."

She huffed and lifted her head to look at him. "If they knew me better I'd be in jail- impersonating a priestess on any level is a crime, but impersonating a Healer is even worse."

"What."

"Yup," she sighed, the frustration leaving her features. "Well, whatever. I'm just glad I made it through the night without anybody finding out."

… was she really just going to drop it like that?! He would have thrown up just from the thought of having to pretend to be something he wasn't for so long- how had she not been a nervous, stuttering wreck the entire night?! [Oh the irony.]

Lumi pushed herself up and dug into her drawstring purse. From it she produced a small blue bottle and a rock. "That reminds me, I found this in the gardens and I thought you'd like it."

It was a nice rock, with a pearly shine and light blue shimmer threaded through with a faint white cloudiness. It fit smoothly in his palm or under his thumb and glided along his fingers when he fidgeted with it. There was just one problem…

It looked too nice to not have been bought.

"You _found_ it in the garden?"

"Yes." She narrowed her eyes at his skeptical tone. "I did."

There was something _sharp_ about her that urged him not to prod further so he dropped it and smiled nervously instead. "It's cool. Really pretty colors, and uh smooth- a nice rock." Could he be any more awkward?

She hummed. Things were quiet for a beat then she asked. "So how was your day?"

He rattled off the few things he'd done and expanded when she pressed for details. It didn't seem nearly as interesting as what she'd been up to and yet she listened like what he said was equally important. (Ozpin shifted at the mention of the Maiden Temple like he always did, but it was subtle and Oscar was more interested in uncovering the secret in his hands.)

"I just activate my aura?" he turned the smooth rock over as if looking at it more would reveal something new.

"Yup," she got up from the couch to toss her shoes by the door.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. His left hand where he held the little rock warmed and when he opened his eyes, it _glowed_ with his aura. "Woah!"

"Ta-dah," Lumi smiled. "These little pebbles are everywhere in the gardens, so don't worry too much about losing it. You can use it to focus when you work with your aura control- which I think we'll start with tomorrow since you're picking things up ridiculously fast."

He ducked his head bashfully. "My other teacher said I had really good control."

A quicksilver frown flashed across her face before it was replaced with a cheery grin. "Great. I'm going to change real quick and then get ice cream- what flavor do you want?"

Well he couldn't just turn down an offer like that- no matter how guilty he otherwise felt about making her spend money on him. "Cookie dough."

**-[-]-**

Living with Lumi was different than living with his aunt, though one of the things that thankfully remained constant between the two was an overabundance of books. Whereas his aunt's collection had little about history and nothing on Maidens, half of Rue's collection in the study was dedicated to those two topics along with discussions on the possible validity of fairy tales/myths. There was even a book about rituals and festivals the local Maiden Temples hosted, which included information about the one he'd walked into on his first day. It made for an interesting read when he could get past the pretentious language and dated ideas, but it wasn't nearly as interesting as skimming Healer texts.

Most of the things described were well beyond him, and even beyond Ozpin for as educated as he was, but they were fascinating nonetheless. Fixing broken bones with a touch, undoing years' worth of scar tissue build-up, soothing burns that would otherwise require grafts and injections- it was almost like magic. Even with all the (overly wordy, complicated) steps laid out in front of him with stark efficiency, he nearly didn't believe that it wasn't.

If only the exercises to learn control to do all that stuff weren't so boring.

Granted, Ozpin had told him more than a few times that the start to Huntsman training was only minutely different but still- he'd expected something more exciting if all of _this_ was the end goal. Well, not that he was really interested in becoming a Healer, but Lumi had refused (in a gentle, reasonable sounding way, of course) to train him to be a Huntsman so this was the best he was going to get until Qrow made it to Mistral.

And, since his mind was on the topic, it was _weird_ that Qrow hadn't made it to Mistral yet. Piecing together Ozpin's memory with the few details available about the 40th Vytal Festival from some online searching, he knew that Beacon had fallen just before the start of the fall semester/new school year. Ozpin hadn't introduced himself until the winter, just before the ground had thawed enough to start tilling, and Oscar hadn't consented to go to Mistral until the tail end of spring.

Nearly a year spanned between the fall of the school and now, so what was keeping him? There could have been a delay with the reading of Ozpin's will or distributing his things, true, but he'd been the Headmaster of Beacon Academy and if nothing else the prestige of the title should have kept things running smoothly as long as the Kingdom of Vale stood (and it _did_ still stand- he'd checked).

Travel was difficult between Kingdoms, and it was now nearly impossible to get into Atlas on account of the borders closing (he'd not been happy to learn about that), but a lone Huntsman who could shift to the form of a bird at-will should have had no problem. Allowing for a delay due to bureaucracy and assuming he hadn't managed to find transport before winter set in, that still left plenty of time for him to have made it by now.

(He point blank refused to believe that Qrow was anything other than alive; the other man was too stubborn not to be, and too skilled otherwise.)

"Hey, Lumi?" Oscar twirled a forkful of angel hair pasta.

"Hm?" she glanced offhandedly at him, then her gaze sharpened. "Yes, dear heart?"

"Qrow's coming, right?" he sounded unsure even to his ears.

"I'm sure he's on his way right now," her voice was soft but firm, like the smile she sent his way.

He twirled his fork more and the noodles slid off. "But what's taking so long?" he looked up. "It's been almost a year, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, it has." The edges of her smile trembled. He was filled with instant regret but then she continued. "When Beacon… fell," she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Both of his nieces… They were part of a group of students who stayed behind to help before the call for total evacuation came. It was brave of them- they were only first years at that point- but they got _hurt_ pretty badly so I think he might've stuck around to make sure they were alright."

(Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose, Ozpin supplied the names and a brief memory. Two of the four bright young women on team RWBY; first years that got themselves wrapped up in more trouble in a semester than most teams did in four years. A sense of amusement mingled fond exasperation and quiet grief rose- he tucked it away before it showed on his face.)

"Even still, they're tough and I don't think it'd keep either of them down for long," her smile regained some strength and a hint of fondness. "So I bet you anything he's on his way right now, and in a few weeks you'll wonder why you ever wanted him to hurry- Ruby told me his training is a nightmare."

"Ruby?" a faint mental image formed of a dark haired girl with a red cloak.

"She's his youngest niece," she explained. "His oldest niece is Yang; I'll show you some pictures if I can find them. Just be careful that you don't fall head over heels," she teased. "They're both pretty cute after all."

He felt his face catch fire. "W-wha-wh-!"

She laughed at his expression and pressed another piece of cheesy garlic bread onto his plate.

**-[-]-**

As busy as Lumi was with her many obligations (Temple duties, work, off the record healings, Oscar), Sundays were reserved for her team and very little ever got in the way of that. Two weeks ago had been an exception due to the Hearth Maiden Festival and her subsequent rescheduling for work, but today was business as usual.

And sadly, she did mean _business_ as usual.

"-if we attach a superfine chain to each arm, and Lumi does her spooky shadow thing, then we can _totally_ scare the shit out of people!" Twila explained with glee.

"Twi, I can scare our classmates without making a twenty foot puppet," Lumi took a fortifying sip of her milkshake. All she'd really need to do was mention that they'd skimped on their latest check-up or needed a booster for a vaccine and they'd run screaming.

"Yeah okay, but like, can you _imagine_?!" she stole a slice of toast from Eve's plate.

"It does sound kind of fun," Sahar (the traitor) smiled with a touch too much teeth.

"I'm not going to spend hours making and rigging a giant puppet for _one_ attack," Lumi shut them down before Eve could chime in and make it worse.

"Would it even take that long?" Eve chimed in and made it worse. "And Twi, what if you came up on the side while they were distracted and used your Semblance to knock them over? Or play a screech and make their ears bleed? That'd work better right?"

Why did Lumi bother to protest? "If I have to make this by myself I _will_ stop bringing cookie cake."

Sahar guarded her plate with a narrow eyed suspicion. "We'll help you."

The other half of ESTL agreed quickly and it soon devolved into squabbling about what supplies to get, when, and how much they were willing to spend for "Leviathan" – otherwise known as the twenty foot tall _puppet_ Lumi was supposed to somehow carry around in a backpack and unleash without giving away that it _wasn't_ a shadow monster she'd conjured out of thin air in the middle of battle.

She loved her team, she did, and not all of their plans were as… odd as Leviathan. In fact, most of their plans made perfect sense and she was happy to go along with them ("Cerberus" was a personal favorite of hers) but sometimes… well at least no one had to strip to get Leviathan to work. She was grateful for that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you lovely readers enjoyed! If you did, feel free to leave a review :) It keeps me motivated! @Hazeleyedotaku also keeps me motivated and gets me kicked out of libraries! [JK, they were closing early for the weekend and I just happened to be in a tense, angst filled convo about Volume 6]
> 
> If you'd like to, you can find me on Tumblr at notweird-scribbles.tumblr.com!
> 
> See you next week!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the CUTE TRAIN!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary so far: Oscar makes to Mistral and meets a friend of a friend. He starts training his aura and it's An Experience. Also, everything is far more complicated (and expensive) than he thought. Lumi deals with Temple business over dinner and Suffers.

In the shade of the back porch with a pitcher of pink lemonade and a good book (well, a trashy romance, but it was a _good_ trashy romance, Sahar promised) Lumi couldn't have been more content. (Well, okay she _could_ have but her family was in Atlas and she didn't have the power to open the borders so this was as good as it was going to get with her current circumstances.)

Warm summer air settled comfortably over her relaxed form, moved only by the weak stirrings of the fan above head which kept her cool enough to not bother moving inside. Her thoughts were just as loose, slipping from one train to another while she lazily flipped through the book. _This_ was the sort of summer break she deserved, not trailing after eccentric professors and getting harassed by random Hunters who thought secretary/assistant equaled "please hit on me, I have nothing better going on in life."

She'd just gotten to the part where the leads took a walk in a moonlit garden, a parallel to their meeting at the start, and their hands brushed one too many times for it to be a coincidence. The magnetic pull of the other was so strong that they stopped, hypnotized and leaned in _just so_ -

"Lu-mi?" Oscar called faintly. "Lu-miii?"

His voice grew louder as he popped his head out the backdoor and caught sight of her. "Lumi!"

That morning she'd been called in to set and heal a snapped horn, followed by check-ups for the rest of the team. The expenditure of aura left her pleasantly tired, but tired nonetheless and if he bothered her before the time she'd explicitly set aside _for him_ she was going to-

"Yes, dear heart?" she asked with a smile that was only half-forced.

"I was reading this book," he plopped into the seat beside her and held it up, finger between the pages to hold his spot. "And it talked about a ceremony or something that you could do to pledge to protect someone?"

… Did he want her to promise to protect him? He didn't need a formal pledge for her to agree to that. It was the least she could do since he was living with her, even without adding in the fact that they had such an unexpected connection in the form of Branwen and the Headmaster.

At her curious look, he handed the book over. It took her a second to decode the older style of writing (did anyone need that many three syllable words in one paragraph?). "Ah, I see what you mean."

He brightened.

"But this is a soldier's oath to the Temple and you're not a soldier," she tapped a nail to the page.

He deflated. "Oh… I thought it was about Hunters."

Rue kept her things in good condition so it was easy to think the book was more recent than it actually was. However when she flipped to the copyright information, it clearly read that it was published _before_ the Great War and the Hunter Academies hadn't even been thought of yet at that point.

"This predates Hunters, and more than that, I don't think Temples even offer some of these rituals anymore," she thumbed through and frowned at the section dedicated to revenge and blood-feuds. There were the standard fertility and good fortune rituals too, but some of the things listed were painfully out of date.

He deflated further.

"If I can ask, why were you interested in that oath?"

"I kinda thought… maybe…" He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. "That since you're so involved with the Maiden temples, maybe I could be too? And take an oath or a pledge or something? You could go with me or maybe we could even go to a festival?"

He really was going to kill her one of these days.

"That's sweet, but I'm not really into the whole… Maiden religion thing," she handed the book back.

He frowned. "But the banquet…?"

"I have to do certain things if I want to learn Healing from Rue," she explained and tucked a loose bang behind her ear. "Part of that includes showing up to Moon temple ceremonies and part of that includes healing people who ask for it."

Which was mostly Haven students (today was a perfect example of that), but she also had to patch up a Hunter or two before.

"But that festival- with the fire?" he pressed. "That was for another temple, right?"

"Yeah, that was for the Hearth temple," she picked up her glass of lemonade. "Rue's primary loyalty is to Luna, but she's also part of the Nightingale Order and technically bound to all Temples; which means I am too as her apprentice." She felt like a brochure.

"So what I'm trying to say it that I'm not _opposed_ to going to the festivals with you if it's what you really want," she made eye-contact to drive her point home. "But you don't have to force yourself to go because you feel _obligated_ to me, dear heart." That was the last thing she wanted.

"Oh, that's…" he swallowed and his drummed his fingers on the hardcover. "Well, there was this one other pledge thing I thought would be nice."

"Yes?" she hummed.

"The formal request of sanctuary," he chanced a look at her from under the cover of his bangs. "Since I don't know how long it'll take Qrow to get here, and it's already been more than the two weeks I asked for when I first showed up, I figured... Well, um, if we made it _official_ then I wouldn't have to leave." He rubbed the back of his neck.

It was a smart idea- logically. Maybe she was biased in thinking that because he was asking it _of her_ and not the other way around. Emotionally… he could have stabbed her and it'd be less painful. Did he really have to phrase it that way?

"Oscar, are either of your parents alive?" she asked before she could burst into tears.

He jumped at the question. "No, uh, they passed away when I was little but what does…?"

That was convenient.

"You're not old enough to request sanctuary unless you're an orphan, emancipated, or you have reasonable cause to leave home," she explained and tried her best to ignore the flash of emotion across his face. (Looked like her theory was right- she _really_ wished it wasn't.) "But if there's no one to contest it, then we can get started on it as early as tonight if everything else is ready."

"So you'll do it?" he perked up.

"I'd let you stay even without it, but I will, if you're sure you want to," Lumi fiddled with the clip in her hair. "And if you know what asking this really means."

He blinked, taken aback. "Doesn't it just mean I can stay here?"

Okay, so he'd read up about the ritual but didn't quite comprehend it- her heart calmed at that.

"Yes, but depending on what variant you want it might also mean that I become your next of kin and get control over things like your healthcare."

If things had worked out that way, she would've had no problem handing that over to Rue, but Oscar had just turned fourteen. There was a big difference in the function of the ritual between her and Rue as two _adults_ going through with it, and Oscar and her doing the same.

He was three years from (legal) adulthood and if she was right about the reasons he no longer lived the aunt he'd offhandedly mentioned once or twice, she was uneasy about letting him agree. It would be so easy to trap him in an unhealthy position, one of actual obligation, and she didn't want that. She wanted him to _know_ and consider, honestly _consider_ , what it was he was asking for.

"That doesn't seem so bad," he swung his legs.

"Take the day to think about it," she urged him and picked her own book back up. "And pick which variant before you ask again. I'm not opposed, but I want you to be absolutely sure first."

He nodded, serious, then marched back into the house, determination in his step.

… Yeah, he was going to kill her with cuteness one of these days.

**-[-]-**

Lumi's insistence that Oscar read and _comprehend_ what the request for sanctuary meant struck a chord within Ozpin, and more specifically, within his memories. He already had the freely offered hints she'd given him [though she wouldn't consider them hints; wouldn't play a game of his memory lapse], a timeframe to search through, and half a name- it was enough for him to finally coax the memories to the forefront of his partitioned off section of Oscar's and his shared mind-space.

It was honestly a stroke of fortune that he remembered her with all of the changes between then and now.

She'd altered her looks- drastically- from his first few memories of her. At Signal she'd had long, dark grey hair and during her time at Beacon the only change she'd made was to dye the top half black. Here, as a Haven student, it was chopped just above her shoulders and colored navy blue. Her clothing choices were also quite different, and from what he could see she no longer wore her weapon strapped to her thigh. The only thing that was the same was the hairclip that held back half her bangs with a cobweb charm welded to the end- a gift from Qrow, he now knew [remembered?].

("Can you grab me the- thanks, dear heart," Lumi wiped flour from her cheek with a smile.)

He dismissed a memory of her smiling at him in the same way. It wasn't relevant [and much later than the memories he was interested in].

Most of what he remembered of her time at Beacon consisted of her team getting called to his office or seeing her name listed on the day's summary of incidents- more so the latter than the former. It wasn't that she was a particularly unruly student, but her team had a penchant for destroying things on missions and setting off the fire alarm while working on Dust bombs for use in destroying the things they got into trouble over. Her preferred brand of rule-breaking was to spend time on the various roofs across campus, which he'd assured that as long she didn't touch the door leading out then there'd be no record of her doing so.

She'd looked so surprised and grateful at the words. If he hadn't known about her past from Qrow, he would have been concerned. As it was [or rather, as it had been] he was concerned about her anyways. It was just in his nature, as it was, apparently, in hers.

("What do we add next?" Oscar stared at the bowl of creamed butter and sugar. It looked like runny oatmeal if the oats had been blended to a fine powder and smelled overwhelmingly like vanilla.)

Unfortunately, his memories of the summer between her first and second year [along with her entire second year] were significantly more difficult to straighten out. Amber had been attacked then, and preparations for the Vytal Festival [with accompanying Tournament] were either in their early stages or in full swing depending on the area in question.

With so much on his plate, he could be forgiven for not recalling their _every_ interaction- not that it seemed to matter much. Whatever had happened between them, Lumi didn't take it out on Oscar despite the boy being a complete stranger and his "nephew." Still, the lack of knowledge itched at him like a poorly fit suit and he wanted to pick apart the problem to find the solution but couldn't. He first needed to smooth out the summer, and the break was more important that whatever spat they'd gotten into- no matter what Oscar seemed to think. The boy was alarmingly attached for having known the woman for so short a time, which he blamed on hormones, but it was perhaps a natural reaction considering the circumstances. [The amount of sway a good loaf of banana bread had was not to be underestimated.]

("Put it on medium and scoop the bananas in, then the flour," she measured out a quarter teaspoon of salt. A lock had escaped her bun and stuck out like a curled balloon ribbon.

Oscar had the strongest urge to tug on it just to see if it'd bounce back the same.)

"I strongly discourage you from pulling her hair," Ozpin felt their hand twitch at his abrupt warning. "Unless of course you'd like to find out how quickly a Huntress can react."

It was good advice but when Lumi turned to grab something, the curl bounced mockingly, a foot away and his hand pulled at it without further thought.

Ozpin sighed as the woman turned slowly to stare at them with a deadpan expression, one brow raised to make him reconsider his actions and the beginnings of a smile tugging at her mouth. (Glynda had the same look, though it was far less amused.)

"Can I help you?"

Oscar froze, the strand of hair in hand, and smiled sheepishly. "Your hair's bouncy?"

She hummed and he withdrew.

He was lucky to have youth was on his side as she did nothing further, merely repeated her instruction for him to add the flour to the stand mixer and measured out a spoonful of cinnamon. Ozpin had no doubt that if _he'd_ done that, he'd have a split lip at the very least for his troubles. (Qrow had once stuck a pen through the curled forelock of Glynda's hair and been stuck to the ceiling for three hours in retribution. A woman's hair was _not_ to be messed with.)

It likely also helped that they'd gone through with the half of the preparation needed to formalize Oscar's request for sanctuary earlier that day. In a little under a week, when they were scheduled to go in for the actual ritual, they could no longer be forced to return to Yellow Brick if his aunt ever came looking.

Furthermore, once Qrow made it to the city then the ritual could be repeated and guardianship transferred or shared between the two. He, of course, advocated a total transfer- it'd ensure that Lumi couldn't bar them from traveling out of the city when they needed to leave. Oscar, on the other hand, favored sharing. The boy's reasoning went like so:

Lumi was an ideal guardian because when he came to her with questions about what he was reading, she always answered him to the best of her ability. If she didn't have an answer, she looked one up and gave her best guess in the meantime. She took his rambly responses in stride and gave his thoughts honest consideration, even his wild guesses. It would have been rude to toss her aside just because Qrow (who she wasn't supposed to know that he knew as anything more than a stranger) showed up.

Ozpin had many rebuttals, but settled on reassuring him that they weren't going to "toss her aside" the first chance that arose. That would be rude and a poor way to repay her kindness. However, if she and Qrow were as good of friends as he remembered, the two would see each other (and by extension, Oscar) fairly often so there was no need to keep her as their primary guardian.

But they wouldn't see her as often they did now, living with and learning from her, Oscar pointed out. That meant no more random baking or just-because batches of milk-bread. Also, did they really have to _move in_ with Qrow? Lumi had promised he could stay after all, and there were a lot of books left on Rue's shelves they hadn't gotten to yet…

Ozpin sighed. There were certain details about the ritual they still had to hammer out; it was going to a long week if he had to argue for everything like this.

**-[-]-**

Sunday morning found Lumi and a curious Oscar (plus a less than thrilled Ozpin) at the Mountain Maiden Temple for a bazaar. She didn't have on the blue and white outfit she'd worn to the banquet, and instead sported a dark green haori with the silver triple moon painted on her forehead. There hadn't been time to get Oscar a matching jacket, but he'd agreed to wear a green t-shirt and when he got to the neighborhood the bazaar was taking place in, he was thankful Lumi had pushed him to wear something new.

 _Everyone_ was dressed in green, even babies being carried in their parent's arms, and those that weren't had bits of eggshell and green glitter stuck in their hair.

"Woah," he exclaimed and wandered off a few steps.

Lumi smiled at his awe and steered him to the food stalls. The third from the left had frybread, her newest favorite treat since her introduction to it last winter. She had resisted looking up or otherwise learning the recipe because she knew herself well enough to know that if she ever learned it, she'd make so much she'd get sick of it and forever ruin the treat for herself. Also, it was deep-fried and smothered in powdered sugar which was just asking for a heart attack.

Still, Oscar hadn't had it yet if the curious look he gave her was any indication, and who was she to deny him the joy of pigging out on festival food?

**-0-**

Half an hour later, she regretted ever introducing him to the treat and had to physically haul him away from the food stalls. He shot her a truly pathetic look, helped along by the adorable mess of powdered sugar and honey smeared across his face, and it took everything within her to keep him marching forward.

"Absolutely not," she snapped. "You almost gave those poor women a heart attack."

"But Lumi," he protested, eyes watery and wide.

"No," she remained firm.

His shoulders slumped and he kicked a pebble dejectedly.

"You're just like your uncle," she grumbled under her breath, too low for him to hear. "Horrible."

Flashbacks to her former Headmaster calling her to his office over _pastries_ of all things aside, she managed to find the bathrooms and clean Oscar's face before he resorted to licking his hands to get another taste of the frybread. He grumbled and tried to pull away but she had far more experience with far more wriggly children than him. Crisis averted (she really needed to apologize to the Sisters running the frybread stall, his cuteness was a _weapon_ when he put a mind to it) they wandered the grounds.

There were the usual little games she associated with carnivals, like a booth to toss ping pong balls into goldfish bowls and a shooting range with prizes that could be knocked down. Oscar wasn't overly interested in the games (still caught up on the frybread, she assumed) but he did perk up at the sight of the little artist alley and a man who was churning out spray-painted art pieces like clockwork.

Uniquely enough, the artist used little pieces of plastic and metal to make shapes and scratch lines into the paint to reveal the white poster-board beneath. She couldn't tell what he was making, but Oscar seemed to have caught on and grabbed her hand in excitement.

"It's Beacon Tower!"

The artist looked up at that and shot a thumbs up his way, which was the best he could do to emote considering that he had on goggles and a facemask. It was enough, however, to get the crowd buzzing even more than they had been.

A little light-headed from the stench of spray paint, Lumi decided to move along and Oscar followed reluctantly, eyes glued to the half-completed piece on display. They ended up at a stall with mountains of used books where it was much quieter and smelled faintly of vanilla from the old bindings. She walked away with a flower language dictionary and burning urge to start sending coded bouquets like a spy in one of those Great War novels. To who, she had no idea, but the idea was there.

They swung back around once they reached the temple proper and had a quick tour. The artist was still busy at work, but the Beacon Tower piece was finished and on display alongside a plethora of other pieces. Again, Oscar's eyes were glued to it and Lumi gave into his silent, unintentional pleading.

He was so happy that he didn't even ask for frybread on the way home (she bought a dozen anyways).

**-[-]-**

As usual, Lumi had work on Tuesday and rather than lounge around the house, Oscar decided to explore more of Mistral. He was mostly familiar with the fifth and fourth level but the third level was much bigger than just his immediate neighborhood so off he went. Lumi had given him an unlimited air-bus pass and he needed _something_ to do when he couldn't train. He still wasn't fond of all the _stairs_ , but they were a good workout if nothing else.

The spray-painted portrait of Beacon Tower glowing green in the fog greeted him when he made it back to his room and made him smile (Lumi was awesome for getting it for him when he hadn't said anything). It made Ozpin happy too, but also a little sad, so he didn't stare at it for too long. He went to grab-

_Glynda's voice echoed in his ears- paperwork that needed to be done wasn't and- Qrow strolled in trailed by a bewildered slip of a girl._

_Long hair done in low twin tails; dark blue coat- vents along the shoulder and elbow for greater range of motion. Bewildered violet eyes, slightly sloe-shaped, with a sharp chin- likely fought with the baton strapped to her outer thigh but her build wasn't right to always be closed range so- ?_

_The girl straightened under Glynda's eye, smiled and played along when his longtime co-worker urged her to ditch Qrow; a decided turnabout. When the girl's attention switched to him, he smiled and gestured to the seats set out for this exact reason. (She wouldn't, not until Qrow told her to- how **curious** -)_

Oscar blinked and stared at his outstretched hand. He'd been trying to grab a book. "What was that?"

"That was first time I ever formally met Miss Hazelwood," Ozpin explained without explaining. She'd been a third-year Signal Academy student then and had personally picked out the coat Qrow was wearing.

"Oh, so you figured out how you knew her?" he perked up. "Well, aside from the obvious." She had admitted to being his secretary and student after all.

"To an extent," he inclined his head. "She was one of Qrow's students and he asked me to keep an eye out for her when she arrived to Beacon."

"What for?" his brow furrowed. Lumi seemed pretty self-sufficient to him.

"It concerned a personal matter," he demurred. Very personal.

Oscar nodded. "So how did they become friends then?" He couldn't imagine becoming friends with any of his teachers outside of school. Then again, Qrow didn't seem all that teacherly.

"That's a question better suited for her, wouldn't you say?" he grinned to take the edge off the mild chastisement. "Besides, I haven't recovered all of my memories about Lumi yet and I'd hate to lead you astray since you are so very fond of her."

He flushed and wished, not for the first time, that the voice in his head had a body that wasn't his own so he could smack him.

**-0-**

Oscar got his chance to ask Lumi about everything he had questions about during dinner. (Well, most of his questions. Some things he couldn't exactly throw out in the open without revealing Ozpin.) As long as he didn't bug her too much in the time between getting home and sitting down to eat, she was happy to answer (okay, maybe happy was too strong a word, but she was patient and he appreciated that).

"-n't know hospitals were so big! And there were two of them just on this level! Say, how many people even _live_ in the city? It's got to be more than fifty thousand, right?"

"I don't know- why don't _you_ look it up?" she bit. "The CCT might be down but Ping is still up."

… Except today it seemed.

"I don't have a Scroll," he deflated.

"What happened to the tablet I let you borrow?" she set down her fork with an exasperated frown.

"I gave it back," he pushed around a small mound of enchiladas on his plate. "It's in the study."

"So _that's_ why I couldn't find it," she groaned. "Well, feel free to use it as much as you like, just don't break it or lose it."

He pursed his lips, questions teetering on the tip of his tongue. Lumi looked tired and he didn't want to be a bother but...

She noticed his staring, or could tell that he still had questions (like _that_ was hard) and sighed. "Ask, as long as it's not something you can Ping later."

"How did you become friends with Qrow?" the words rushed out of him before he could think too hard. "I mean, he's friends with my uncle, right? And Ozpin was a professor so he's way older than you, isn't he?"

(Ozpin sniffed at the accusation of being old. He had been at a respectable, dignified age when he was alive, with a good dozen years [at least] left in him, thank you very much. Old indeed!)

She blinked owlishly, processing his words. "He taught Weapons Shop at my high school. I started to hang around him in my third year and we… clicked, I guess. Sort of like me and Rue."

He gave her an encouraging look.

"You want to know how Rue and I became friends too?" He nodded and she refrained from sighing. "She was there, when Beacon fell. Remembered me because I tried to help in the med-tents but my skills in Healing sucked when it came to anyone but myself. Now I do her paperwork and chase down students for check-ups, and in return she teaches me to be a less crappy Healer."

"Healing seems really difficult," he frowned at her self-deprecating tone. "I'm sure you weren't as bad as you thought."

Lumi smiled crookedly. "You're so sweet, but no- I couldn't even numb an injury right. I'm much better now though, so there's no need to try and cheer me up." She finished off her plate and patted his shoulder. "I'll do the dishes tomorrow, please put away the leftovers."

Then she went upstairs and he was alone with his many unanswered questions. (What was Rue's job, exactly? Why Qrow of all people? She'd worked with Doctor Oobleck- did she like him? Were they friends too? Why did she say all those things about herself when she brushed aside his questions about Ozpin that second day in? Why _this_ and why _that_ and **why**?)

"That could've gone better," he muttered while he cleaned up.

There was always tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am exhausted so I hope y'all really savor this chapter and review if you're so inclined ^q^


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary so far: Oscar makes to Mistral and meets a friend of a friend. He starts training his aura and it's An Experience. Insert one (1) Temple bazaar and it turns out Oscar is a fiend for sweet things just like his “uncle.” Said “uncle” has started to remember Lumi- finally. Lumi regrets ever giving Oscar free-range of the bookshelves because he is a Menace, but he’s also adorable so it works out. 
> 
> Note: Healer Melinoe is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

Lumi felt the incense curl into her eyes as scented oil dripped over the crown of her head. The priestess’ soft words were a soothing hum of pledges and promises that cradled her inner-ear. Oscar’s hand was a warm weight in hers, and the solemnness of the situation did nothing to diminish the happiness on his face. It showed in the formal picture they took at the conclusion of the ritual, which was in and of itself as much official proof as the paperwork they signed afterwards, but she couldn’t bring herself to admonish him for breaking tradition. 

(It would be hypocritical anyways; she was smiling just as widely as he was. Wider, even, when they received a set of matching leather bracelets that officially marked them as Guardian and Ward.)

They went out to eat afterwards, and when he devoured a basket of milk-bread by himself, she laughed. “Are you sure you never met your uncle? Sometimes you act _just_ like him!”

Oscar swallowed quickly. “Do I really?” He asked with cute tilt of his head. 

(Earlier that morning she had apologized for snapping at him and in turn he had held off on asking his many questions- but that didn’t mean he didn’t still _have_ them and wasn’t still curious.) 

“Well if the bazaar hadn’t tipped me off, then this certainly did,” she pointed at the crumbs left in the basket. “He had a sweet tooth too- a really bad one considering how much hot cocoa he drank.” 

“Didn’t you say something how he liked milk-bread too?” he asked guilelessly (and guiltily because Ozpin was helping to direct his answers). 

“Yeah,” she pressed a hand to her mouth like it would tame her smile (they were in public after all). “So, the summer I worked as an intern at Beacon, I usually left a few treats in the staff lounge; little things that I made mostly. When I ended up being the Headmaster’s sort-of secretary, I kept doing that.” 

A waiter came by to refill their drinks. 

“I didn’t think anything of it,” she sipped at her water. “Well I mean, I knew I could make the professors like me more if I kept them fed- which works with most people by the way- but I wasn’t specifically trying to get anyone’s attention or make myself their new favorite student.” She rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of a member of team HRLD being anyone’s favorite. “I made some things more than others, but for the most part what I brought in was a random pick.” 

“But one day, and it was a completely normal day mind you, your uncle called me up to his office and sat me down with the most serious expression on his face I’d ever seen,” she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “I thought he found out that I made a copy of the journals I was supposed to be transcribing and that he was going to sue me or expel me for that, but _nope_ ,” she popped the last syllable. “He just wanted the recipe for the milk-bread. A few days later, I’m guessing after he tried _and failed_ to make it on his own, he called me up again and asked if I wouldn’t mind making him a batch for him every week.” 

She was full-on laughing at that point, uncaring about any judgmental looks from strangers, and her mirth was so infectious that Oscar joined in. It was such a nice moment that neither Ozpin nor Lumi had the heart to tell the boy about the significantly less funny end to the story.

When they settled, she told him about her siblings (who now lived in Atlas with their dad) and he returned the favor with a short story about his aunt. Unwilling to let him linger on bittersweet memories of That Woman, she moved the conversation along to more lighthearted topics, like training. 

Chromatica was set to come over on both Monday and Wednesday of next week since the girl had realized just how quickly Oscar was catching up. She’d all but thrown herself into studying so he couldn’t one up her, which was hilarious to watch because Oscar didn’t look like he knew about the rivalry at all. In fact, he relied on her for help and direction when Lumi’s attention was elsewhere. 

That, of course, riled the blonde up (how dare he mock her like that!?) but it was so gut-wrenchingly hilarious that Lumi hadn’t stepped in to fix it- and why would she? She had to get her kicks from somewhere after all, especially now that summer was in full swing and she missed her family more by the hour. Their dynamic was similar to Ash and Nocte's, if less violent because she doubted Oscar would ever smack Chrom upside the head and run away giggling. Still, it was nice to see something so familiar- and it’d be even nicer now that Oscar was officially her ward. 

Her own little family, right in Mistral- how could she ever ask for more?

**-[-]-**

Most twenty something year olds spent their Friday nights out clubbing, going to parties, or otherwise hanging out with friends their age. Sahar, for example, had a date. Twila was going to a concert with a friend she’d met over the CCT (met before it crashed, that was) and while Eve was staying in, she had plans for tomorrow morning and needed to be well rested.

Lumi, on the other hand, was hunting for some upbeat music on UsTube so she could finish her half-drafted sundress. When a decent enough playlist appeared, she hit play and returned to outlining the pattern pieces onto the pinned fabric while mouthing the lyrics. (She wasn’t tone deaf, but she also couldn’t sing well and poor Oscar didn’t need to hear her try.) 

Her initial mock-up had followed the pattern she’d bought, but this new one had modifications to allow the chest to sit more naturally and make sure the skirt wouldn’t swallow her short legs. Midway into cutting out the outlined pieces, Oscar wandered into the kitchen, tablet under his arm, and plopped himself at the island. He raided the fruit bow for a snack while he sat, half-listening to the music and reading something or another online. 

As she suspected, his second motive in coming to the kitchen hadn’t been to hang out with her but to stare longingly at the slow-cooked barbeque pork in between eating half the snacks in the house. (Did his aunt starve him or was he just going through puberty? It was hard to tell at his age.) He didn’t look like he hated or loved her playlist (too focused on the food) so Lumi left it on.

After a solid twenty minutes of quiet co-existence, he set down his tablet and dragged his attention her way. “So, what are you making?” 

“A sundress,” she lifted a panel of pinned together fabric and held it to her waist. It made half a skirt but that was enough to demonstrate her point. 

He nodded, sliding back into his seat, and they fell back into a companionable silence. 

“It’ll be done at six,” she reminded him without glancing in his direction. 

He jolted at the sudden words then sighed- it wasn’t even a quarter after five yet. Well, there was nothing for it- she couldn’t make time go any faster.

With a fond roll of her eyes, Lumi arranged the panels of her sundress into a rough approximation of what it would look like when done (cute!), then undid it and stacked the pieces in order. It wasn’t quite as tailored as most of the other things in her closet, but it’d still look nice and that what was important. She cleaned up the bits of fabric clippings and paper, then frowned when the doorbell went off. Who- oh, the full moon had just passed, hadn’t it? 

She tucked her fabric scissors into the wide pocket of Rue’s (her) apron and went to answer, Oscar trailing behind her curiously. She opened the door and her eyes first went to the well-worn fabric of the person’s Healer coat, then to their hair, which managed to be equal parts blond and grey without being definitively one shade or the other.

“Good evening, Apprentice Hazelwood,” they smiled brightly, face creased by well-worn laugh lines. 

“Evening,” she returned the smile and hoped she didn’t have chalk smeared on her face. “Please, come in.” 

They did and slipped off their shoes in the entryway, making small talk all the while. Their eyes quickly glanced around in a brief appraisal of the house but Lumi hadn’t changed anything since last month- well, except one thing. 

“Now who is _this_ handsome young man?” 

She turned and saw Oscar peeking his head from around the corner. He froze in a split-second of panic then sheepishly waved, cheeks a rosy pink. (Gods he was just so _cute_ ; she loved him.)

“My son, Oscar,” she answered and tapped the leather bracelet on her right wrist to forestall any questions. 

“Three generations under one roof? How lovely!” Melinoe clapped with joy and then there was the sound of scrambling footsteps. 

... well there went “her son.” The older Healer looked concerned at that, but Lumi waved the worry off. “Healer” was probably close enough to “doctor” that he was unnerved- he didn’t exactly do well with strangers that had the power to report him to CPS. (She didn’t blame him.) 

“He’s just shy. Now, if you’ll follow me,” Lumi led them to the study. The room smelled like old books and faintly of incense. Stacks that Oscar had pulled from the shelves and not put back littered the free-space in a cozy, lived-in way; another change from last month, but a good one.

Melinoe cleared a corner of the desk and plopped their messenger bag down. After a moment of rifling through it, they produced a binder and clip board with a pen chained to the top. Lumi was faintly jealous at how put together they were but brushed aside the emotion as the two of them settled in to work. 

The next half hour was spent going over what plants Rue kept in the green house (just to be sure no new hybrids had sprung up), which ones were ready to harvest to make more Anti-Plant, which ones were ready to harvest for other things, and when Melinoe could come in to work on that. 

All in all, it was a productive hour but Lumi was happy to see the older Healer go so she could sit down for dinner. Oscar, she was sure, was even happier even though he’d reverted to avoiding her eyes. 

She played with the idea of teasing him for not realizing that by asking her to be his guardian, she legally became something like a mother to him but refrained. If his blush didn’t die down soon he might just faint and that wasn’t something she needed. 

(Still, it was still funny to see him jump when she called him dear heart as they went their separate ways to go to bed.)

**-[-]-**

Oscar turned the package over in hands and shook it slightly. There was muffled thump, but nothing broke and it didn’t sound like it was full of packing peanuts so it probably wasn’t a glass vase or anything. (Ozpin pointed out that shaking things was a poor way to determine that. If it _had_ been fragile, he surely would have broken it.) With a shrug, he wandered downstairs and unhooked the Scroll from the wall to call Lumi at work. 

She picked up on the second ring with a concerned, “Yes dear heart?” 

“Hi Lumi,” he smiled reflexively at the sound of her voice. “A package came for you from ‘H. Forhan’ – where should I put it?”

“Oh, that’s from Rue,” she said, relieved. Her voice crackled over the spotty connection. “Just take it upstairs to my room. What does it look like?” 

He checked to make sure the Scroll was charged (it was), then walked back upstairs as he described the box and relayed his observations about it. She hummed along, then he opened the door to her room and choked. 

“Oscar?!”

“I didn’t see anything!” he threw the box on the bed and slammed the door shut. 

“… What?”

“TalkToYouLaterBye!” he hung up and raced to slam the Scroll back onto its base. That done, he shoved on a pair of shoes, grabbed his wallet and sprinted out the house, barely pausing to lock the doors. 

His short legs ate up the distance between the house and the nearest bike path with a fervor he usually reserved for the times he woke up late in feeding the chickens. (He protested running in general but the situation called for it.) Thankfully the walk (sprint) over was clear of people aside from the one street that lead to the local park. 

He sucked in a deep breath to cool his burning face and hooked a left to take the slightly more difficult route. He tried to direct his thoughts to focus on anything other than what he’d seen but Ozpin was _not_ helping. 

“Stop thinking about it!” Oscar hissed, face red as a firetruck as he fiddled with his new bracelet. 

Ozpin turned in place to give his other half more of his attention. “Why? It’s quite interesting.” 

“No! No it’s not! It’s weird- and rude!” he was careful to keep his voice to a low yell. 

“Perhaps it would be if we went _looking_ to find her underwear- but we didn’t. Neither did we rifle through her things for a trophy afterwards. I am merely curious about what her clothing choices say about her.” Ozpin explained in that irritating, sensible tone of his. 

(His reasoning went thus: outside of her work uniform, Lumi wore tailored clothes near exclusively. These clothes were Mistrali-styled and showcased a variety of color in a manner that made her appear somewhat older than she actually was- so why did she wear cat patterned panties? It ran counter to the image she projected.) 

“Well you can think all you want about the rest of her clothes, just not- _that_ ,” Oscar hissed. 

Ozpin rolled his eyes at him (there was little difference between clothes on a body when viewed dispassionately and clothes on a hanger) but kept his thoughts to himself as they continued walking. They looped back around to the house when they reached another mile out and to their great relief, there were no more surprises waiting for them at the house. (Such as, Ozpin thought with a touch too much amusement, gods forbid a _bra_.) 

**-[-]-**

The package, as Lumi found out after work, was a small stone statue that Rue wanted put into the family altar, a selection of Dust-infused thread, and a few yards of fabric given as a gift from a thankful patient. Rue could stitch people up no problem, but she couldn’t sew to save her life so she re-gifted it to Lumi. 

“Hm,” she held the fabric up to the light. 

The rest of the letter included in the package mentioned that she’d need to attend the Summer Solstice Banquet and one-up “that old biddy Micah” which was a good indication of how efficient the postal system was. Not that she was complaining, because the package could have been lost entirely on the way or arrived so damaged that nothing was salvageable, but still- the banquet was nearly two weeks ago and this was ideally supposed to come _before_ then. 

Oh well. At least she got a few yards of sturdy cotton out of the deal. Said cotton was soft enough to catch the rough skin of her fingertips when she rubbed it between a finger and a thumb and she was 100% going to turn it into a sundress. Mind made up, she set the package onto the seat of the vanity and shadow-stepped downstairs.

Oscar jumped in surprise at the sight of her, spilling his juice. 

Oops. 

“Sorry about that dear heart,” she grabbed a tea towel and tossed it onto the floor to mop up the small puddle. 

“How do you _do_ that?” he set the glass down with a burning curiosity that made her want to pinch his cheeks. “I didn’t even hear you come home!”

“Ah, it’s my Semblance,” had she really never told him about it? Another oops. “I can travel using shadows.” 

“That’s so cool!” he exclaimed, then- “Uh wait, what’s a Semblance?” 

… was he joking? He had to have been joking, right? Because his _teacher_ told him about aura and activated it for him- but what, that hack hadn’t bothered to tell him what a _Semblance_ was? Were all the adults in his life useless???

“It’s… hm,” she paused to collect her words and shove her indignation in a dark hole. How best to explain it for someone who didn’t read aura studies for fun? “It’s a power that’s unique to you that can be discovered through training, meditation or high-stress.” 

She was going to be having _words_ with his teacher if she ever met the man.

“Is that why you keep having me meditate?” he asked. 

“No,” his shoulders fell slightly at the flat denial. “Meditation is important for accessing your aura outside of feeling like your life is in danger. Discovering your Semblance through it isn’t the main point, but it is a nice side-effect… didn’t your teacher ever tell you that?”

“Kind of?” he waved his hand in a so-so manner. “He said it was ‘vital’ to my training and ‘a focused mind is a Hunter’s greatest attribute’ but that’s about it.”

Uh yeah, _pointed_ words with the man. “What was his name?”

He averted his eyes. “I dunno. He didn’t exactly stick around.” 

Of all the _irresponsible_ \- the shadows flickered and she stopped to take a deep breath. Now was not the time. 

“Your teacher sucks,” she told him and dismissed her Semblance entirely as he poked at a too-dark shadow. His weird gaps in knowledge suddenly made more sense, as did his willingness to let her get guardianship of him. Had he ever been around an adult that wasn’t a complete fuck-up? 

He shrugged, unwilling to look at her except a quick glance and it made her feel a little like trash. A teenager who startled easily and had an abusive family- right. Probably shouldn’t lose her temper too much. 

“Well that aside,” she said with a casualness she didn’t feel. “How was your day, dear heart? Things were pretty calm at the shop today, aside from this one customer who…” 

**-[-]-**

“Hey, Lumi?” Oscar looked up from the book in his hands (it wasn’t one of the ones she’d assigned him yesterday, but he always had a book in hand- maybe he ought to give up being a Huntsman to become a librarian). “Do you know anything about the Temple of Fire?” 

Why did he think she knew about every topic from every book Rue had on hand? 

“Uh, sort of, yeah?” she frowned and set aside her tablet. It wasn’t exactly a happy story, and being part of the Temples through Rue had given her a new take on how _awful_ it was.

“It says that they have all of the same- well, _most_ of the same- rituals and festivals as the Hearth temple,” he flipped it around to show her. “And the Maiden they’re devoted to is the same, so why haven’t they merged into one temple?” 

“Well,” she tucked a bang behind her ear. The gentle hum of the dryer provided soothing background noise. “They are… kind of. You see, just before the Great War finished, the king of Vale came by and destroyed the Fire temple. The remaining priestesses packed up and renamed their order, but they kept most of their old traditions.” 

“No way,” he breathed, eyes wide. “He just- _why_?” 

“I don’t know,” she gently took the book from his hands and skimmed the page. “Some people think it was to get the Emperor of Mistral to stop fighting- his youngest sister was part of the temple- and some think it was just that he got bad information. It’s hard to tell.” She shrugged. She had her suspicions of course, but then again, she didn’t think highly of _anyone_ with that much power. 

“But… they were peaceful,” his hands slowly curled into fists. “They helped people- they didn’t fight in the war at all!” 

She set down the book on the floor in front of the couch and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, warm from a faint thread of aura. 

“How could- why would someone do something like that?” he shuffled closer, expression confused and angry and just a little _hurt_. 

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “And I don’t think I _want_ to know the mindset behind why someone would.” 

It made a certain amount of cruel sense to do so, but she didn’t understand the fundamental reason _why_. More than that, it wasn’t something she thought Oscar should focus too much on either. 

He nodded, as if sensing her unvoiced sentiments. “Yeah.” 

She smoothed her palm along his back. He leaned into the touch, an internal debate on clear display. Then he shifted in place, glanced at the unused incense holder, and horror flashed across his face as he whirled to face her completely. 

“Is that why no one writes about the Temples anymore? Or talks about them outside of Mistral? Because the king-?” 

Lumi could do nothing more than nod and send a flare more of aura his way when he crumbled. (It was always _difficult_ to realize how awful the world could sometimes be, especially when that young.) He was smart enough to make that connection so he was probably smart enough to figure out what happened after an army swept through the equivalent of a hospital and homeless shelter. If he didn’t- well, she wasn’t going to tell him. (Children deserved to be innocent as long for as possible.) 

After a drawn out moment, she patted his arm and got up. “Come along, dear heart. We’re going to bake cookie-cake.”

He followed, sticking to her side like a burr for the rest of the day. 

**-[-]-**

It took a few days for Oscar to really _process_ what one of Ozpin’s ( _his_ ) past lives had done. At first the immortal soul hadn’t wanted to say anything about the matter, but when it became clear that yes, Oscar was one hundred percent willing to _ignore_ him again, he explained his position. Ozpin didn’t try to excuse what the king had done, but the context leading up to act made it easier to stomach. 

Nine years into a world war, the Relic of Destruction in hand, and (bad) information from a trusted source- he’d thought it was a soldier encampment. He had his doubts when a woman came to speak to him, alone and unarmed, but then archers struck and any attempts at parley were thrown aside. He’d thought she was a distraction, a trick by Mistral’s forces, and so had his army- until it was too late. The Fire Temple (a series of sick rooms by then, staffed by orphans and widows) was turned to rubble and smoke; the wounded lay dead in their long occupied beds. He left to Patch and put an end to the bloody war within the year. 

It’d been decades since then- he’d made peace with it as best he could. Tried to atone for it by advocating the establishment of Healer programs when it came up in a Council meeting, read up on what exactly the Temples were and what they did. Learned who the woman was (Osiria, Temple Mother and Spring Maiden) and what that meant. 

While Oscar was still horrified by what the king had done, it was hard for him to stay upset with Ozpin. It was a human mistake, and the circumstances had been rough; Oscar couldn’t imagine doing any better in the king’s shoes. (Well, he sort of could, but that would require not being king at all and fleeing to live in the woods so-)

As a peace offering, he asked Lumi to get them a tin of fancy hot cocoa (Ozpin’s favorite brand and _very_ expensive) then picked up one of the books that the wizard had wanted to read but that Oscar had vetoed. They read quietly on the couch with Lumi's (cold) feet tucked under his legs and a warm mug of rich hot chocolate at his elbow for a few hours. The book wasn’t as dry as he thought it'd be, so he didn’t mind too much and even removed his gloves so Ozpin could get the sensation of their fingers across the pages. (Lumi looked up at that with a bemused smile, not sure if she should comment on the change, but in the end she didn't say anything.)

It was a nice afternoon. Ozpin, for as annoying as he was sometimes, deserved that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a rough week OTL Drop a review if you liked the chapter, it'd make my day! For another take on the King/Fire Maiden Temple thing, check out my connected one-shots "Maiden Killer" and "Scepter and Sword." In case it wasn't obvious, I've been excited about this plot point for a WHILE lol
> 
> Also, if anyone loves Ozpin/Ozma and his daughters as much as I do, TheOtakuWithHazelEyes and I are co-developing a fic starring them (plus their nanny, Lumina)! Check out my writing sideblog notweird-scribbles.tumblr.com for art and sneak peeks from that!
> 
>  
> 
> Until later, hope you lovely readers enjoyed- see you next week!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Too Cute For Words
> 
> Summary so far: Oscar makes it to Mistral, meets a friend of a friend, and learns about the world. Lumi adopts the farm boi and vows to be the best adult in his life because the rest honestly sound like fuck-ups.

_It’d been a long night and an even longer morning. Qrow had stumbled in past midnight with information best shared in person and after dealing with the mess that arose from it, Ozpin only just managed to snatch a few precious hours of shut-eye before rolling out of bed at precisely six AM for a video conference with James. Following the call was a meeting with the school’s head of finance, then the paperwork he hadn’t finished filling out yesterday, and then a tour of the campus with a few politicians who wanted to see where their tax money was going. (Exactly where it always went- right into training humanity’s future protectors with safe, regularly up-kept equipment.)_

__

_Lumi, bless her, had taken one look at him and returned with a slice of cinnamon roll cake in addition to a fresh mug of hot cocoa. Though it wasn’t technically part of her duties (she’d been transferred to the De Sena project after all) she managed to clear his schedule for fifteen minutes and quietly tidied his office when he left to oversee the instillation of new monitors in the combat classrooms._

__

_His secretary, who usually handled such matters, was nearly as busy as he was due to the absence of Glynda and sang the girl’s praises when she offered to run into the city to pick up lunch. (That she snuck Ozpin an order of milk-bread against his secretary’s wishes was a secret he’d take to his literal grave.) There was just one problem (well, not exactly a problem- more of a quirk) when it came to her that he’d noticed; that his secretary had confirmed…_

Oscar blinked into awareness as Lumi tapped his knees- left, left, right; right, right, left. 

“-th me now, dear heart?” her voice reached him as if from underwater. There was a flicker, a flare of warmth then his eyes focused onto her pale, calloused hands with laser precision. 

“Blink twice if you’re back,” she said. 

He felt her amusement like it was his own- he blinked; twice. 

“Good,” she smiled (he would do anything for that smile). “You might feel a little dizzy when you get up, and I have no doubts that you’re starving even though we just ate. That in mind, how does…” 

He could listen to her talk for hours. She was just- great, wasn’t she? So nice, to Oscar and to Ozpin even though she didn’t like adults. She had good reason not to and yet to Oz she was so kind, baking for him and accepting detention without argument when he- 

“That’s odd,” Lumi murmured (voice like honeyed frybread smothered in powdered sugar) and pressed two fingers to his cheek. He leaned into the touch, nearly fell over when her fingers bent back. “Huh.”

She removed her hand and his eyes shot open. He fixed her a pitiful set of puppy eyes and she frowned- oh no, why was she frowning? She shouldn’t be sad. She deserved to be happy and unhurt- protected! He had to protect her! 

Lumi walked off. He stumbled to his feet after her (he couldn’t protect her if she went away) and threw his arms around her waist. 

“Don’t go,” he wobbled despite standing still. 

She sighed and disentangled herself. Her arm stuck out an angle- oh, an escort. He could do that. They were nearly the same height after all- wait, no they weren’t. Ozpin was over a foot taller than her. She was _tiny_ in comparison- but, no she wasn’t. She was taller, wasn’t she? By at least a little? 

He tried to measure their heights as they shuffled from side to side in front of the bookshelf but it was difficult. He knew that she was taller than he was at least, so ha! He was right (he was also wrong but _this_ him was right and-)

They were at the couch? On the couch? Okay.

He buried his face into Lumi’s stomach as she flipped through a book. She ran her fingers through his hair with a hum. “Yes yes, I love you too; now stop squirming.”

A tidal wave of affection rose up in him and escaped through his wet eyes. “Really? You love me?” That was wonderful, _so wonderful_ ; he loved her too. 

“Of course,” she soothed (her voice was like hot cocoa, like warm milk, like liquid warmth). “You think I let just anyone squish me like this?” 

He missed the teasing tone in favor of hearing her words and reeled back. “I’m _squishing_ you?!” 

“No, not particularly,” she sighed and pat his shoulder. “It’s just a figure of speech.” 

“Oh,” he settled back down. “… do you still love me?” 

“Yes, Oscar,” she focused more on the pages in front of her. “I do.” 

“… do you love Ozpin?” 

She frowned and looked at him. “Where did that come from?” 

He fidgeted in place, tugged on the hem of her (soft, _so soft_ \- it shouldn’t have been possible for everything about a person to be that soft) shirt. 

“Well I didn’t hate him,” she admitted. “I don’t exactly think I knew him enough to say whether or not I loved him though.” She shifted in place but made no move to get up. 

“But then how do you love me?” he pressed and scooted up enough that she had to tuck the book behind his head. 

“You’re cute,” she said as if it was obvious. “And you listen to me, so that’s a bonus.” 

He nodded (that was good enough for him) and laid his ear to her chest to hear her heartbeat. It echoed his own pleasantly, thudded in time with the pulse of his aura. His eyes slipped close with a smile.

“… there are worse ways to spend the morning I guess,” she sighed (he heard the whoosh of her lungs) and continued to read. 

He hummed in agreement. 

**-[-]-**

Oscar turning out to be an affectionate drunk (on aura and not alcohol) was familiar enough that she handled it the way she always did: by ignoring him completely. Well, maybe not _completely_ but she didn’t let it stop her from rooting through Rue’s books for an answer or doing laundry or texting her friends. In the two hours it took him to go from “a territorial octopus would be easier to remove” to “aggressively cuddly,” she ordered in for dinner and settled in with a marathon of House Hunter. 

She ate her way through enough food to feed a small family, rediscovered her hatred of all-white kitchens/living rooms/studies/bathrooms, and carded her fingers through Oscar’s hair often enough to make it stand up by itself. It was in the middle of another pass of her fingers through his hair that he dragged himself from a blissed out daze to wide-eyed shock, blushed hard enough that she feared he might actually faint, then bolted. 

Poor boy. Well, there was nothing for it.

She had work the next morning. In between grabbing finished orders, helping customers, and keeping the front tidy, she thought about the reasons the Healer’s text had given on why some patients had more extreme reactions than others to treatment. Chief of them was that the patient was touch starved and lacked a fundamental feeling of _safety_ or a sense of being _loved_ in their day to day lives. Likewise, those who had been abused or neglected over long periods of time also tended to have aura concentrated around their heads- as if it could soothe a wound that wasn’t there. Lumi did, and now she knew that Oscar did too. 

It was… horrible, to get that sort of confirmation from a completely instinctual and unconscious reaction on Oscar’s part, but once she knew she couldn’t _unknow_ and there wasn’t exactly anything she could say to reassure him. He was much shyer and less prickly than she’d been at his age (she’d gotten into _several_ fights at his age and older) but he kept just as quiet about the past hurt as she had. 

What else could she do but act like nothing had happened? 

**-0-**

Oscar’s condition only deteriorated after the disaster that was Friday. Ozpin’s memories of Lumi and last summer came flooding in like someone had taken a wrecking ball to the side of a dam. Oscar couldn’t look at her without getting slammed with _helpful-spiteful-dedicated-quiet_ and phantom echoes of “yes, Headmaster/no, Headmaster.” His sense of balance was also off, his body used to one way of walking while his mind tried to force another, but his reflexes had improved (Lumi looked a little sad at that part). 

As far as Ozpin could tell, Lumi’s practice in manipulating her aura through another’s system had merged his and Oscar’s souls more than expected for how long they’d been together. Due to the traces of her left along their aura, any memory with her in it had been brought forward and their combined affection towards the woman had manifested itself in a desire to _cling_ to her. 

In short, they were a mess and though Miss Hazelwood ( _at least call her Lumi!_ ) tried to pretend everything was normal, it only made it more and more obvious that things weren’t, not by a long shot. 

Ozpin couldn’t keep back the _disappointment-resignation-frustration_ that colored a few of their less than pleasant interactions, and as the initial rush of combined _happy-comfort-fondness_ whittled down, the two conflicting emotions mixed and churned Oscar’s stomach. 

It was like so, curled up on the couch with a pack of crackers and a thin blanket, that Lumi found them Sunday after grocery shopping. She frowned and placed her hand to his forehead, then gently grabbed his chin to check both his eyes. 

“I think we should get you to the emergency room, dear heart,” she said and lit her left hand with aura. He flinched and it was gone. 

“Nn-o,” he groaned and pressed into her light touch. “No-oo.” 

“This isn’t a normal reaction.” Her voice was firm. 

“Don’t wanna,” he drew the throw blanket tighter around his shoulders. 

She sighed and looked to the ceiling. When she ran a hand through his hair he could have _melted_ on the spot in joy. Ozpin never got this sort of treatment (why would he? he was much older and rarely saw her outside of a professional or academic setting) but Oscar had it in abundance (so why did he still feel disappointed in her?).

“Stay?” he looked up at her through his lashes. 

She hesitated only a second before sitting and letting him collapse onto her. Thoughts of impropriety flashed through his mind before being promptly thrown out; he was fourteen and Lumi’s ward. If he couldn’t get a little coddling while sick, what was the point of asking for sanctuary? (To not have to leave if his aunt came to get him, to have a legitimate reason to be in the city, to have a cover in case police officers started asking questions, to-)

“Hey, Lumi?” he slurred, forehead buried into the crook of her neck. She hummed and he felt it pulse in his aura. “Why don’t you get along with Ozpin?” 

Though she didn't move, he felt her aura shift uneasily (how?). “We got along.” 

“Then why d’you say all those things?” he pressed. 

“It’s complicated,” she sighed again. “And not a very nice story.” 

“Tell me?” he hooked a finger around her wrist, where the bracelet sat that marked them as _belonging_. “Please?” 

He could feel her inner turmoil and waited, testing the depth of how much he and Ozpin were able to feel from her. Not much, as it turned out. It was easy to tell when hesitance gave way to determination, but there were nuances weaving in and out that were outside his or Ozpin's ability to read. 

“The Headmaster was very kind to me,” she recited and smoothed a palm along his back. “When I first started at Beacon, he told me that the roofs were off limits to students; then he told me that as long as the doors leading to the roof weren’t opened, there’d be no way of knowing. When Goodwitch- one of my professors- caught me, he switched my detention from cleaning the cafeteria to shelving books at the library. And when my team got in trouble, _kept_ getting in trouble again and again, he didn’t punish us too harshly.

“At first I thought he was just that sort of person, but when I overheard some other teams talk about the sort of things the Headmaster assigned them as punishment, I figured out that he was being lenient with my team, and more specifically, with _me_. It was… nice, to get that sort of attention. I was flattered, especially when I pieced together the fact that Branwen- Qrow- had asked him to. 

“Midway through the summer between my first and second year I ended up transcribing a set of journals from this Atlesian scientist while also running errands for the Headmaster. It was all rather last minute and incredibly stressful since the preparations for the Vytal Festival were just starting up, but your uncle never lost patience with me. When all the professors still at the school went out for lunch, he invited me along and paid for my share even when I almost dropped a pitcher of ice water on him.

“It was a mess- _I_ was a mess,” she laughed. “But I got my act together, decided to be more helpful and the term flew by after that. Near the end of the summer, I was giving a tour of Beacon to Yang and Ruby- Qrow’s nieces- when my mother showed up and caused a huge scene about- something ridiculous.” She cleared her throat and held him a little closer. Her aura was flaring just beneath her skin, prickling against his senses. 

“She’d been giving me grief- for a while over… things, but it was the first time she’d ever come to my job to be a menace. It was…” she frowned, lost in thought. “Not good- _at all_. And not just because she was making a scene. I wasn’t supposed to be giving a tour in the first place and then I had to _leave work_ to deal with her. That was technically a violation of my contract and not to mention incredibly unprofessional. When I walked in the next morning, I knew I was going to get fired because no one, not even the Headmaster, was going to put up with an employee who brought that much baggage with them…” 

She looked at him with a bittersweet smile. “Do you know what he did when he found out?”

Oscar knew thanks to Ozpin, but wanted to hear her out anyways. He shook his head as much as he could with his cheek melded to her shoulder. 

“He didn’t fire me. In fact, he banned my mother from ever setting foot on campus again. Later, when I started yelling at him for letting Ruby in two years early for doing something incredibly dumb, he didn’t even get mad. Hell, even when school started back up and I started being a _huge_ bitch to him about all the trouble team RWBY was getting into, he didn’t yell at me or kick me out or undo the ban. He was just-” she sucked in a breath and struggled to find words “-so _kind_ to me even when I wasn’t in return… it was who he was.”

Lumi went quiet and slid a tendril of aura along her arm, around his back. It was warm, but empty aside from a pang of _longing_ so he pushed his own her way to fill the void. She flinched and withdrew at that, which left him cold but she fixed it brushing a thumb over his fevered cheek. The action filled him from the top of his head down to his toes with _fond-happy-joy_ and he hummed contently. 

“But then the year was over and… Beacon _fell_ and… I’d realized how horrible I’d been. I can’t exactly apologize for that now, thought I would, so... I guess that’s it. That’s what happened with us.” 

They sat in heavy silence. Oscar’s head spun, the thud of her heartbeat a strong echo against his side while Ozpin gently cradled each of the memories her retelling had conjured. He wanted to tell her something encouraging, something nice and helpful but the words were stuck to the roof of his mouth so he curled around her tighter and squeezed in a full body hug. She sighed and they laid there for a while. 

[Ozpin felt- 

Ozpin was- 

She didn’t need to apologize. He had long forgiven her for her temper, her harsh words and actions. She was younger then, but just as fiercely protective and without all of the facts it was easy to understand why she lashed out. 

Still, that she apologized (wanted to do so then and _would have now if she could_ ), that she learned from and regretted her treatment of him showed remarkable growth and eased something about his chest. He had long stopped expecting others to remember him fondly, to recall him with anything other than malice. Yet there she was without all of the facts and still ready to extol his virtues ( _kindness, compassion, level-headedness_ ) to a boy who “knew” nothing of him; to a boy she could just have easily led astray with rumors and speculations, with bitter stories about his failures spun to cast him as a villain.

Her kind words rooted themselves into the pit of his chest, a warm and soft gratitude woven through with threads of fondness. It was more than he ever received from some and as unexpected as it was, it was hardly unwelcome so he tucked it away for safe keeping and sunk into the background as Oscar started to doze in Lumi’s arms.]

**-[-]-**

Oscar’s weird (very, _very_ weird and horribly concerning) reaction to prolonged exposure of her aura cleared soon after, though he retained a sensitivity. Had he been any older or any better about hiding his true emotions, she wouldn’t have been able to tell because it didn’t physically change anything about him. However, the fact that he leaned into her every touch and took every available opportunity to be close to her (a psychological desire so intense it bordered on _need_ for some) was enough of a sign. 

It was equal parts _adorable_ and **horrifying** which left her unbalanced. She’d missed the constant, small touches her siblings had openly given her and that Oscar felt comfortable enough to initiate that was nice- but that he’d only done so because his aura was so desperate for acceptance and comfort was less nice. 

He (unwittingly) took advantage of her off-kilter but generally good mood and badgered her with questions about aura at all hours of the day: What was it, really? How it could be used? How did a Healer’s use of it differ from than of a Hunter’s? What had Doctor De Sena written about in her journals? All that and a dozen other permutations of those topics; plus more once he remembered that the Maiden Temples also used aura in their practices. 

While some of his questions were simple and straight-forward, some were incredibly nuanced and phrased in such a way that she had to repeat them a few times before she understood what he wanted to know. More and more often despite her own proficiency with the subject, she found herself running for the books or stopping by temples after work to question the oldest, most well-read Sisters she could find. Even then more than a few of his questions and their answers stumped her. She was left second-guessing what she knew at times whereas he seemed to take it all in stride and come up with his own theories. 

It was for that reason that Lumi clicked between two tabs on her Scroll that boasted businesses in the city that could test IQ and several other biometrics while also providing legitimate, recognized certificates to some pompous sounding “association.” While she might’ve joked about it before, she was honestly considering the possibility that Oscar was a _genius_. If it was true, and she thought it was, didn’t he deserve something nice to tack onto his (future) resume? 

The only thing that stayed her hand from asking him about it was the fact that the boy disliked attention from strangers and when she’d taken him to one (1) medical check-up, he wouldn’t meet the doctor’s eyes or stop fidgeting until they’d left. He was fine when _she_ gave him a check-up before, and when she convinced him to let her do another when they got home “just to be sure.” His problem was with authority (like Healer Melinoe)- and oh, wasn’t _that_ familiar?

She really wished she could stop running to glaring reminders of the boy’s past abuse. It was annoying, mostly because she couldn’t call up his shitty aunt and clock her in the mouth. It also dredged up memories of Branwen and his year-long attempt at getting her to open up about _her_ hurt- which, in retrospect, she was way more obvious about than Oscar. 

She couldn’t imagine how torn up he felt about realizing that his quiet little student _of three years_ was being hurt to such a degree and that **no one** had done anything about it- she was ready to throw hands with Oscar’s aunt and she’d known the boy little more than a month and a half. Her heart ached at the thought and she vowed that when Qrow made it to Mistral she’d apologize and treat him to dinner. 

But it wasn’t going to do her any good to dwell on it now and she consoled herself with a few facts. She actively worked to provide Oscar with a safe place to live and encouraged his undying desire to learn about things- even if Qrow didn’t make it until fall, he’d still get there eventually and there was no possible way for Lumi to be a worse guardian than Oscar’s aunt unless she _chose_ to be. Which, haha no, that just wasn’t happening. 

(She wasn’t her mother and wasn’t ever going to be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out my writing sideblog notweird-scribbles.tumblr.com for art, drabbles, and other RWBY things!
> 
> Also, I will be taking a short hiatus to focus on school! I hope you lovely readers enjoyed and that you have a great day :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Uhhh hey! A shorter chapter to ease myself back into writing. Thanks for sticking around (and maybe reread the entire fic because things take a dive next chapter)!
> 
> Summary so far: Oscar makes it to Mistral and meets a friend of a friend that turns out to also somewhat be his (well, Ozpin's) friend? It's complicated. He has a very worrying reaction to an aura exercise then gets over it and drives Lumi up the wall with even more questions. He's cute so it works out.

Lumi found the stockroom of a school clinic to be a surprisingly good place to have a stress-induced mental breakdown. It was quiet, physically sectioned off from the rest of the school, and students couldn’t get in without special permission- students that weren’t her, at least. While it smelled like anti-septic and there was nowhere comfortable to sit, it was something of an oasis in the busy, busy halls of Haven Academy. The fact that it was the same place Rue had found her and offered a formal apprenticeship via the Temples only added to the aura of peace Lumi found within those four walls, and it was sorely needed in the moment. 

Work, team activities, social calls, personal training, Healer tutoring, and Temple duties had her knocking back an extra cup of coffee just to get through the day. With Oscar’s unexpected and somewhat severe injury that morning (on top of his very concerning reaction to her aura before that) she found herself chugging a _third_ cup between forcing out counted breaths in the dark, somewhat messy stockroom as she waited for Professor Lionheart. 

“Maiden Mother guide us by your Light, both fractured and whole; dark and luminous. Lady of Stars and...”

Rue hadn’t been kidding when she said Temple duties would keep her as busy as any job. Lumi only wished she didn’t need the income from Marron’s as much as she did or she would’ve quit by now so she could breathe without having to schedule it. 

The chime of her Scroll (precisely seven minutes) had her stumbling to her feet and out of her haven. No more time to fall apart- she needed to finish getting the clinic ready and prepare herself to deal with her mysterious patient and Headmaster. 

Stethoscope in place, thermometer clean and calibrated, and a quick mint to cover her coffee breath; she was ready. She threw on a Healer’s coat, took a deep breath, and opened the front doors with a swipe of her Scroll. 

“Good afternoon professor,” she greeted with a small smile that grew slightly wider when her mysterious patient turned out not to be so mysterious after all. “And Mr. Rainhart! It’s good to see you again. Tell me, how is your shoulder doing these days...” 

**-[-]-**

Ozpin turned the heat off and placed the lid back onto the rich, spicy dish. His muscles ached pleasantly from the day of exercise though his arm remained _off_. Their experiment hadn’t turned out nearly as well as either of them had hoped, but it wasn’t a complete failure. He tacked another trial onto his mental list. 

“Should we really try again?” Oscar mentally drifted in, fingers worrying the handkerchief at his pocket. 

“When we find Qrow and not a moment sooner,” he soothed with a murmur. “I can reassure you that Miss Hazelwood was quite serious when she said she’d leave us injured if we tried such an exercise without supervision again.” 

Granted she’d also threatened that when they first started training with Chromatica but this particular reminder had included the prickle and chill of aura to support her words. Perhaps it was another adverse reaction to healing, but he was- _they were_ \- loathe to do anything that would cause her to look disappointed so soon. They also _ached_ to see her and have her hug them again; would have given up- ah. Ahem. Ozpin centered them with a cough. 

Sadly, she had other obligations and couldn’t stay to soothe them. There was a way around it, however. Despite Ozpin’s initial reluctance, wearing one of her cardigans did help. In fact, he was nearly positive that Lumi wouldn’t be receiving this particular article of clothing back until long after _all_ of their symptoms had passed. Perhaps not even then considering how often she was away these days... 

Ozpin smoothly handed the lead back to Oscar as they dug into their second helping of dinner. The boy’s appetite had only grown in all the time he’d spent in Mistral but somehow Lumi always managed to cook enough to fill him fit to bursting. He cleared his plate and fixed a third for later (because he would, inevitably, come back for more) then laid out on the couch with a sigh. 

What now? He’d already showered, eaten, cleaned (for a given definition of the word) and exercised as much as he could safely do on all three fronts. There were probably only reruns of shows he didn’t care for on TV- that's all there was these days what with the CCT network being what it was- and the books on his nightstand had gotten him into trouble so... 

“Have you journaled today’s progress?” Ozpin watched as their world turned about an axis and darkened (Oscar buried his face into the pillows).

“But that’s so boring!” 

He tried not to take offense. Journaling had been one of his (few) hobbies from his time as Headmaster and it was not _boring_. "It’s a useful pastime. You never know when you’ll need to recall information about a given day in prepara-” 

“Oz, I _really_ doubt I’ll get invited to a fancy party with Mistral’s Council, District Lead-”

“-tion of Qrow’s arrival and subsequent discussions.” 

He groaned. Sharing a mindspace void thing made for really annoying argu- _discussions_ \- ments when the wizard could change his argument mid-sentence to perfectly counter Oscar’s points. Still, it wasn’t a _bad_ idea and maybe it would sort of help... Not like he had anything better to do. 

He laid like a starfish until Ozpin prodded him (again) then plodded downstairs to grab the leather-bound journal. Rather than sit at the _perfectly good, secluded_ downstairs couch, he reclaimed the main sofa and flipped through the old entries. At the wizard’s insistence, the first few pages were dedicated to a Table of Contents, a few different workout plans formulated by Oz and Lumi in turns, and a reading list. 

_“-estival today! Something about a mountain or food (there was a lot of that)...”_

_“Shopping again. Do we really need that many matches? I guess they’re handy but there aren’t any lamps around here...”_

_“- POOL! Not just a creek (not that there’s anything wrong with the Citrine’s creek but it’s kind of hard to swim in because of the current) but an actual pool! And-”_

He tapped the pen to the page and hummed to himself. The first few words came haltingly, stuttering half a sentence here and a quarter of a paragraph there. He crossed the words out and revised them a little further down; crossed those out too then tried again. Third time was the charm as the words trickled out of him a few words at a time then all at once. 

By the time he finished he had ink smeared along the side of his hand, a few lines near the corner of his mouth where he’d gone to nibble the pen at the wrong end, and still no sign of Lumi. 

Oscar sighed and packed up. 

**-[-]-**

The chain diner was neatly tucked between a late-night sushi bar and a café, which was reassuring only in that it meant very few people would be around to see her die on her day off. Dramatics aside, she was hungry and so walked in with only a little dread weighing her stomach down. 

“Well well well, look who showed up!” Lumi winced at Eve’s eager grin. Those crooked pearly whites promised an interrogation and a half. “Finally drag yourself away from your ‘patient’?”

At this, Sahar turned away with a sniff and faux-shyly offered up her palm to Twila. The bottle blonde fussed over the ‘injury’ with a handful of smooches that trailed up the other girl’s arm until Sahar burst out laughing.

“First of all he’s like, fifteen so that’s definitely not what was going on,” Lumi crinkled her nose at the snickering pair and slid into the booth. “And _good morning_ to you too, you deviants.” 

“Fifteen?”/”Morning!”

“Deviants?” Twila raised a brow. 

“Yes deviants,” she picked up the menu. “What else do you call it when three huntresses blackma-”

“You should try the house salad!” Eve leaned over the table to flip the pages. “It comes with unlimited breadsticks!” 

“It’s _nine_ in the morn-”

“Did you hear something, Twila?” Sahar twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “Because it almost sort of sounded like Lumi was admitting to living in a glass house. Weird, huh?” 

She growled and jerked her menu out of Eve’s grabby hands to cover her face. “Fine. Whatever. I’m getting a milkshake. How was your mission, team?”

Eve happily chattered over Lumi’s mood and gradually cajoled her into talking about “The Temple Boy,” which did wonders to thaw her mood. With her siblings in Atlas and physical mail as slow as ever, she’d received precious few letters about their exploits and had run out of things to gush about until Oscar waltzed into her life. Unfortunately, not everything about his living with her was all sunshine and rainbows. 

“It’s not really my place to say anything,” she tugged on a bang and glanced around. “But I mean, the Temple wouldn’t just _give_ me guardianship if there wasn’t a compelling reason why he shouldn’t go back home.” 

They quieted under the weight of the implications. “His parents sound like real fuck-ups,” Twila stole a tater tot from Eve’s plate. “But _clearly_ you’re the better choice so good on your old-lady cult for recognizing that.” 

She shrugged, unwilling to go into more detail about his family life or defend the Temples when her teammate was clearly trying to lift the mood. According to her Vows she probably wasn’t supposed to tell them as much as she had, but they were her team. There was a trust there, one that had been tested over and over and found true.

“Well I’m glad he’s somewhere better,” Sahar glanced at her from the corner of her eye. “But what are you going to do when school starts up again?” 

“Some family is coming to get him,” she slid her milkshake away from Twila’s twitchy fingers. “One of my Huntsman friends from Vale, actually.” 

“Huntsman or Huntsman- _in-Training_?" The distinction was important (...and obvious, at least to Lumi).

“Huntsman,” she reiterated warily and straightened her spine when a conspiratory gleam flashed in her team’s eyes. “No we didn’t date and **no** you can’t date him. He used to be my teacher.” 

“Ooh, teacher kink?” Eve said, a little too loudly judging by the alarmed look an elderly couple shot their way. 

“Not on your _life_.” The shadows beneath the table darkened and a chill crawled up Eve’s spine. 

The rest of brunch proceeded smoothly, with no further mention of kinks of any sort. At all. None whatsoever since the various members of her team didn’t want to confront the embarrassing things she knew about them. (Two moves and a traumatic transfer hadn’t managed to kill Lumi’s habit of collecting gossip like a squirrel approaching winter. Most times her team appreciated it... but now? Not so much.) 

**-[-]-**

Oscar bit his bottom lip with a focused exhale, finger tips lined up neatly and nearly but not quite touching. Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him from focusing so hard, but he could _feel_ the energy jumping the tiny divide like sparks between wires. He inhaled, pushed, felt the air press along his bare arms and cool the sweat down his back then- !

“Lumi! Lumi, I got it!” Chrom squealed, tearing Oscar’s concentration to pieces. 

His aura lurched and retreated like the tide. With a groan, he flopped back and watched as _Chromatica_ got the lion’s share of Lumi’s attention. Which, yeah good for her or whatever, but he was _so close_! He nearly had it that time- really, honestly, and truly nearly had it!

“I distinctly recall your eyes being hazel, not green,” Ozpin teased. 

Oscar growled and sat back up. “Shut up!” 

Lumi’s praise covered his hushed conversation but not the pointed grin Chrom sent his way. He turned away with a huff and busied himself with drinking water. It was a deeply involved process (he didn’t want to choke and send Ozpin off to another host after all). Definitely _not_ a way to ignore the smug older girl. Not at all. He would never. 

“-for today! I think your cousin is on their way so stop staring at Oscar and go change,” Lumi clapped her hands to emphasize her point. 

Chrom, who was some sort of bird faunus and not a cat or snake, hissed “ew” then ran off. 

Amused, Lumi rolled her eyes and got to her feet. “Well, that’s that. I’m going to go shower so if Tallica shows up, let ‘em in. Oh- and if Healer Melinoe comes for the greenhouse stuff while I’m out, the clipboard is in the study, okay?” She ruffled his (sweaty, ew) hair with a smile. 

“Okay Lumi,” he leaned into the motion. “Do you know when you’ll be home?” Did she have to be gone all day _again_?

“I think my team’s punishing me for being a homebody lately, so no clue,” she sighed and shook her head. “I’ll make sure they don’t drag me home for karaoke though. They’ll probably be loud enough just dropping me off and no one deserves to hear them yowl in the middle of the night, least of all you.” 

He nodded, which got him another smile and a cheek pinch, then she strolled inside. 

How was he supposed to fill his time now?

...

Doing more research for Ozpin’s weird contingency plans it was. 

**-0-**

Their “Plans” journal looked like the work of a conspiracy theorist but it needed to be that thorough to appease Ozpin’s sensibilities ( _cough cough_ **paranoia** _cough cough_ ). There was a general timeline, a timeline of dust prices, a timeline of missions available and their duration plus area, a timeline of “other things related to Haven,” etc. Oscar was only half aware of what all of it was for even with sharing a mindscape, but he dutifully collected it all anyways. 

As a matter of practicality, Oz couldn’t name all of the Mistral-based Hunters that made up Qrow’s network, but there were a few people he recognized well enough. Unfortunately, those individuals hadn’t come home in the two months he’d been in the city. It wasn’t an issue of a technical malfunction as the public mission boards were clearly working; a handful of other Hunters managed to return and snag another mission. Just... none that he knew. 

Checking the “Missed Connections” section hadn’t helped any either. The local towers worked, yes, but it was functionally useless. If Qrow was close enough to post a coded message he’d already be in the city and waiting at the Black Cat Bar. Not one to discount the possibility that they might’ve missed each other, Oscar checked weekly but the Huntsman still hadn’t made it that far, making the entire system a bust. 

Tired and mildly disheartened, the pair retired early with a bowl of “Triple Surprise!!!” ice cream and a movie about a little undersea robot that found a magical city. Oscar got up to switch movies around nine, then found himself blinking at the ceiling in the dark while the song for the movie’s main menu looped and the front door rebounded off the wall. 

He groaned and turned over, then growled when _whoever_ waltze- wait... Front door? Giggling? Well, Lumi had warned him in advance after all. He shook his head with a sigh, irritation gone, and closed his eyes to fall back asleep. 

“Ah sh-hit, isn’t y’ur kid sleep?” a muffled, slurred voice drifted downstairs. A muffled, slurred, _man’s voice_.

“Shh!” Lumi wasn’t dating anyone. She was giggling an awful lot for talking to a stranger. “Or _you~_ can sleep outside!” 

Oscar, now uncomfortably awake, rolled off the couch and stumbled into his room. The sound of uneven footsteps cut off as someone closed the door at the top of the stairs. He nestled himself into the pile of blankets, one of which he had taken from Lumi’s spot on the couch on Tuesday, and slowed his breathing like Ozpin showed him. 

He fluttered on the edge of sleep when the muted clatter of baking sheets dragged him back to wakefulness. 

Oscar whined and pulled a pillow over his head. He and Lumi were going to have words in the morning! Firm words! … well okay maybe not because this was her house but he was going to ask her to keep it down next time. 

He really hoped there wouldn’t be a next time. He also hoped this wouldn’t become a regular thing or he might take up Ozpin’s suggestion to go live with Qrow when the man showed up. 

That on his mind, he dragged a pillow over his head and passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hope you lovely readers enjoyed! I'll see you next time [when we start to get into Actual Canon and not just teasers] :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary so far: Oscar goes to Mistral. Lumi is busy and Oscar's bored but also busy. A ~mysterious guest~ makes an appearance.

There were two coffee cups next to the machine the next morning. The one on the left was in a grey mug with the silhouette of a nightingale- Lumi's favorite- and the one on the right was plain white with a small chip along the rim. The coffee inside was pretty much the same color but Lumi’s would have an earthy, bitter taste to it because she didn’t add sugar, only milk. 

Oscar accepted the apology coffee with a smile and cradled the still warm mug in his hands. There were specks of cinnamon floating at the top- just the way he liked it- and a hint of something else. That new syrup they picked up when they went shopping last week maybe. 

“Good morning, dear heart,” Lumi called as she strolled into the kitchen, scrunching some sort of sweet-smelling crème into her hair. 

“Morning,” he beamed and took a sip- which he promptly spat out at the first hint of “something else” beneath the coffee flavor. 

“Oscar?” 

He scraped his tongue with his teeth and scrunched his nose at the drink. “Yeah?” 

“That,” she said, voice oddly high. “Is _not_ coffee.” 

He set the mug on the counter with a sigh. “Yeah I thought so...” 

She burst out laughing and ruffled his hair with her coconut and hibiscus scented hands. “If you knew then why’d you drink it?!” 

His face burned. “Well... I kinda thought it was an apology for waking me up last night...” 

“We woke-” She stopped cold at that, cheeks flushed red. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t expecting to run into- mm,” she cut herself off with a strained grin. “Actually, I wanted you to meet them so I’ll save introductions until-” 

They could hear a cascade of bottles thudding onto the shower floor and faint cursing. She winced and let him go, walked to the end of the stairs and did _something_ that made the shadows darker around her. 

“Well... third impression’s the charm?” she said over her shoulder then shook her head. “I promise that I- _we'll_ make it up to you later.” Lumi flashed him another smile and swept back into the kitchen to pack lunch for the day. 

With that, Oscar prepared then dug into his breakfast. He didn’t want to meet the mysterious man. Ozpin was a little more forgiving. Their hostess had a life that existed before either of them had walked into the picture. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume she had a romantic partner that she simply hadn’t introduced them to. For whatever reason. She’d been a private person at Beacon too. This sort of behavior wasn’t abnormal for her. 

(Denial wasn’t just a dried up river that once crossed the Vacuoan desert...) 

He was halfway through his third course (cereal) when he felt the hair on the back of his neck raise. He shuddered and turned, which put him face to face with a pair of gleeful red eyes. 

“Boo.” 

Oscar squeaked and accidentally whacked the older man in the face with his spoon. (Ozpin beamed with joy.) 

The man laughed and massaged the red spot on his cheek. “Yeah, you’re definitely one of chickadee’s.” 

Lumi rolled her eyes and shooed the man away. “Thank you, Branwen. Now why don’t you act like less of a creep and actually introduce yourself before I give Oscar the go ahead to beat you even more senseless?” 

He rolled his eyes back at her, bobbing his head with the motion. “Qrow Branwen at your service, kid.” 

He looked exactly like Ozpin remembered, aside from the unstyled hair and clearly borrowed shirt. “Oscar Pine. I’m Ozpin’s ne- _nephew_.” 

The scruffy Huntsman nodded and plopped onto an open seat while Lumi passed him the not-coffee. “Yeah, this one,” he jerked his thumb in Lumi’s direction. “Filled me in. Wouldn’t stop gushing about you actually and I can see why,” he sipped at the not-coffee with a grin. 

Oscar didn’t trust that look and Ozpin didn’t either. Just what had Lumi said? 

“So you wanna be a Huntsman, huh?” 

He kept his eyes fixed to his spoon as he stirred his cereal. “Yeah.” 

“Well there’s space in the class for you,” he batted at Lumi’s hand when she tried to pinch his cheek. “And I got it on good authority that _someone’s_ been running you through the wringer so let’s just assume you passed the entrance exam.” 

“Don’t worry,” Lumi switched tactics and pinched Oscar’s cheek instead. “As sketchy as he looks, Branwen does actually know how to teach. Though I’m not sure if it’s a class so much as a roving band of delinquents at this point...” 

Qrow waved her off. “Whatever. Point is I’ll help you out, kid.” 

It was clear that these two were friends, even without dipping into Ozpin’s memories. That was good. Qrow needed a friend in the city. Lumi had her team and though this week had been chockfull of visits with them, she hadn’t seen much of them otherwise; something about scheduling conflicts. These two would see a lot of each other given that Oscar would be training- wait, _class_? As in Qrow had found others? Was that what had taken him so long? Had he- 

'

Ozpin prompted Oscar to nod before the silence could grow awkward. “Oh, uhm, thank you, uh, Mr. Branwen.” 

The other man grimaced while Lumi laughed and wrapped an arm around Oscar’s shoulders in a quick, tight hug. “Well then! Be sure to tell me all about it when I get off work.” 

She dropped a kiss on the crown of his head, hugged Qrow, then hurried out. Oscar watched her go, wishing with all his heart that she’d stick around for just a little longer because what even was he supposed to _say_ now? (What did he mean _‘what was he supposed to say now’_?! They’d only gone over it every day for months, not to mention the many pages in their Plans journal dedicated to-) 

“Ugh, morning people,” Qrow shook his head. “Anyways, just call me Qrow, pipsqueak. Everyone else does- well, everyone normal does.” He snorted. 

“Okay,” he shoveled more cereal into his mouth. “So,” he swallowed noisily. “Uhm, I guess this is the part where I ask for my cane back?” 

Qrow froze, mug halfway to his mouth, and spilled not-coffee all over the countertop.

**-[-]-**

Fresh off the heels of The Tyrian Situation, Ruby felt prepared to handle basically whatever life could throw at her. She watched her uncle get poisoned, made it (safely) to the city, climbed up a mountain, talked to Haven’s Headmaster- all of it she handled with enough poise to make Weiss proud and a bare minimum of panic.

What she was unprepared to handle was her uncle bolting at the first sign of needing to clean and leaving the rest of them to deal with the musty, closed off house. Seriously, once that first dust bunny rolled in front of him- poof! Talk about rude! He’d left them all alone with a two- no, _three story_ house complete with two different living rooms! What sort of a house even had two living rooms, much less an entire floor dedicated to a training room? And why was it so dirty if it’d been sealed up?! 

That wasn’t even touching on the half-rotted clothesline in the giant, dirt filled yard or the many, _many_ grey-red comforters and crunchy pillows! Ugh, or all the _spider_ webs and nests... Ruby prided herself on not being afraid of bugs or dirt unlike _some_ teammates with white hair she could name, but there was only so much a girl could take before she couldn’t take any more! And getting her only clean pair of socks doused in dirty mop water was definitely _not_ helping matters! 

(Long story short, Ruby was at her limit and if Qrow didn’t make up a good excuse soon she was going to... going to... steal his flask! Yeah! She’d steal it and fill it with the moldy pineapple juice they found!) 

“I can’t _believe_ you ran off to drink and make kissy-faces with some lady!” she wailed and whacked her uncle in the arm with a blackened rag. “You didn’t even bring the right food to apologize!” 

“Ach, lay off, kiddo! I wasn’t making out with some random lady- I found Oz,” Qrow defended and set the boxes down. (But, as Ruby noted, he was wearing _different clothes_ that he **definitely** hadn’t brought into Mistral with him.) 

She puffed up, full of righteous indignation. “Oh yeah?! Then where is he and why did you send me _this_?!” She whipped out her Scroll and showed him a (blurry) picture of himself and a female shaped blue blob laughing. 

He leaned closer, titling his head to the side. “Huh.” 

“Huh? HUH? Is that all you have to say for yourself?!” she strangled her Scroll then squeaked when she was pulled into a tight hug. 

Her uncle’s scent was off, further proving her theory that he’d done more than find Ozpin, but beneath the foreign detergent was his usual aftershave and vaguely stale alcohol. It was wonderfully him, wonderfully familiar, and she felt her traitorous muscles relax before she remembered she was mad at him. 

“Alright, sorry for making you worry,” he pinched her cheek as she struggled to get away. “There, ya happy now?” 

She sniffed. So maybe she wasn’t as prepared as she thought, but who could blame her? She’d spent long, terrible hours hoping against everything that they would make it to safety before she lost _another_ precious person and then he’d up and disappeared on them! 

“...Well I still don’t see Professor Ozpin, so...” she trailed off and didn’t complain when her uncle spun about her like a maypole. (He was so dramatic despite how cool he claimed to be.) 

“Where the hell did-” 

A short, freckled-face boy stumbled up the stairs and into the house, clutching two full bags to his torso. The one holding bottles of soda had split along the side and the other had a dark shoeprint across it. 

“Sorry!” the boy huffed. “I went to tie my shoe a-” 

“HEYA!” Nora called from the stairs (which were halfway hidden from the doorway). 

“- aH!” he jumped at the surprise greeting and a bottle of orange soda flew. 

Ruby watched it make a textbook perfect arc before slamming sideways onto the floor and exploding in a delicious, citrus scented, sugary mess. All over the freshly mopped floors. 

“Oops,” Nora covered her mouth and blushed. 

Uncle Qrow reached for his inner shirt pocket. “Don’t worry about it, pipsqueak, Nora’ll clean it up.” 

“Hey!” Nora opened her mouth to argue, glanced at ‘pipsqueak’ and winced. “Ye-ah, I’ll get it.” 

While she skipped down the stairs, literally jumping over the last four steps, Ruby turned her attention to the boy. “So, uh, hi! Welcome to our house... thing.” Now that she thought about it, it was probably a dorm judging by the amount of identical rooms, but she wasn’t sure if it had a fancy name or not. 

He stared, hazel eyes boring into her face like he was trying to take a picture with his brain, then Qrow cleared his throat and he smiled shakily at his feet. “Ah sorry! I’m- hi, I’m Oscar- um, Oscar Pine, that is. Except you might know me better as... P-professor Oz-Ozpin?” 

“WHAT?” Nora slapped a hand directly into the puddle. 

This kid was Professor Ozpin? He was shorter than she was! 

“Why is there so much yELLING?!” Jaune yelled and sneezed, nearly tripping up the stairs leading from the training room with a pile of sheets in his arms. “If you found _another_ spider’s nest just kill it!” 

“He says he’s Professor Ozpin,” Ruby tilted her head to the side, scanning Oscar from head to toe. He didn’t look anything like the green-wearing headmaster from Beacon. 

“Professor Ozpin?” Ren asked as he turned the corner, armed with rubber gloves and a box of baking soda. 

Ruby saw her uncle and Oscar (or uh, Ozpin?) share a look. It was a look that never meant good things were going to happen like getting a fresh delivery of cookies or a carton of strawberry ice cream. No, it was the look that meant somebody would be getting a lecture and also maybe detention and also maybe they’d have to write a letter apologizing about the cats. 

Oh boy.

**-[-]-**

There was a lot to cover. Ozpin’s plans had not originally included revealing his true nature to Team RNJR or having their aid in his future endeavors- but Qrow had made a compelling argument for their inclusion. Ruby had unlocked her silver eyes atop Beacon Tower, petrifying a dragon Grimm in the process. That only cemented her as a figure of interest for Salem and her forces. While the educator in him would have preferred the children to have joined another academy to further their training, he could not and would not deny their help when he was this vulnerable. (Could not and would not turn them away when they were equally vulnerable, in different ways.)

That said, he was loathed to distance himself from them for than just the mutual benefit they brought. He trusted Qrow’s judgement in the matter as he had so often when he had lived, even without the other man detailing each and every last one of them. The few he’d chosen to expand on were sound, though not necessarily what he would have chosen to act upon, and the end results were undeniable. Qrow, after all, hadn’t been worked into the fold of Ozpin’s information network simply because he liked the cut of his jib. 

With that said... 

“We good here?” Qrow stretched an arm across his chest, the motion causing Oscar to lean back on instinct. “Cause I’m starvin’.” 

“Ah, well, there was... one other thing,” Oscar resettled and rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. 

“Shoot.” 

“How do-” he cut himself off with a sigh. “What are your- Do you think I should live with Lumi still?” It wasn’t exactly what they wanted to ask but it was close enough. 

Qrow cocked his head with a frown. “What?” When Oscar opened his mouth to clarify, he sat forward. “No, I got you but- what? Why do you care what I think, pipsqueak? If you’re happy there, you’re happy.” 

“Well, that’s sort of the thing,” he threaded his fingers together and tried to drown out Ozpin’s feelings. “Ozpin said it would make more sense for me to live here so I can train at any time, but I really like Lu- **living with** Lumi, that is, and I mean... it’s not like she knows so that’s a thing, but also-” 

“Woah woah woah,” he held up his hands and leaned back. “She doesn’t _know_?” 

“... Yeah,” he winced. “All Ozpin really remembered about her at first was that they didn’t get along so he wanted to hold off... then it turns out it wasn’t that bad, but by then we’d been here a while and she maybe, sort of, adopted me?” 

He reached into his shirt and pulled out a(n empty) flask. “Yeah, you’re gonna wanna elaborate on ALL of that _after_ we get something to eat.” 

Oscar flushed and followed where the older man led. RNJR had torn through the pizza between brunch, lunch, and now there was but one Franken-pizza and two breadsticks left. In the somewhat musty smelling fridge was half a loaf of bread, two empty packs of hot dogs, and his leftovers from yesterday that had been miraculously untouched. 

He popped the tipperware in the microwave while Qrow refilled his flask and snagged half the franken-pizza. 

“So,” he said around a mouthful of bread. “We can skip the drama between Oz and Lumi ‘cause I lived through it and you can start at the ‘sort of adopted’ part.” 

Oscar sighed but did as told. Even discounting this offshoot of their conversation, he’d never talked so much in one day before. Since he felt like his throat was going to give out any second now, he shortened his living with Lumi and coming to Mistral into as few words as possible while Ozpin shuffled a few details that would be important to Qrow forward. At the end of it, his voice cracked and Qrow was onto a second fill of his flask. 

“Why can’t shit ever be easy?” he groaned, dragging a hand down his face. 

He grabbed a glass of water and drank greedily while Qrow rebooted. 

“Look, Oz, I get it, okay? Trustin’ someone you don’t remember is tough- impossible, even- but would it have k- mm no, lemme rephrase that,” Qrow screwed up his lips with a huff. “It woulda made things a lot easier now if you’d told her before but I get why you didn’t.” 

Ozpin let the words sink in, reprimand and validation equally sharp in his head. 

“Though frankly, I don’t see a way of her bein’ alright with Oscar _suddenly_ moving in. ‘Specially not if she _adopted_ adopted you.” 

“I- we’re not really sure,” he winced when his voice cracked. “And I don’t want to ask, ‘cause then it kinda seems like I’m tossing her aside in favor of ‘some stranger’ after all she’s done for me.” 

Qrow sighed. “Rock an’ a hard place here, kid, but it ain’t that bad. I’ve still got to do my digging around while Leo gets his act together with the Council, remember? So, in the meantime keep crashing at chickadee’s and we’ll revisit this after she’s sure I won’t accidentally drop you off a cliff or something.” 

“Okay,” the tension bled out of his shoulders. “And wait, what?” 

He laughed at the boy’s expression. “She cares about you, kid. A lot. To the point that she really sent me an overbearing text about keepin’ you safe, so let’s hold off on tellin’ her until I work it out.” 

Ozpin was equally as stunned but felt that somehow, he shouldn’t be. Qrow was her friend, had been for years at this point ( _he’d stayed the night_ ) and yet Lumi **didn’t** trust him with Oscar? What?! 

“Ahh, you’re a riot,” he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “When you’re done eatin’ I’ll take you back home and let her know you lived so she can fuss over you when she clocks off.” 

He nodded and robotically ate another bite of rice pilaf. Maybe it was a lingering effect from Tuesday, but the thought of her caring _that much_ made him feel warm from tip to toe. The knowledge was soured slightly by the fact that she didn’t know about Ozpin’s whole reincarnation thing but they’d have time to work out how to tell her. Eventually. Qrow would help. He’d even said so. 

Everything would be alright.

**-[-]-**

RNJR and Branwen had flown into Mistral on a Tuesday or Wednesday, split their time between a hospital (he’d been **poisoned?!** ) and a motel, then finally made their way to the house on a Friday. She’d run into her good friend-slash-former teacher _that same night_ and spent most of Saturday working while Oscar met the other kids.

With all that in mind, it made sense that the house was pitifully low on food, had cleaning supplies well over a decade old, and that no one had _real clothes_. ( **No** Hunter outfits didn’t count as “real clothes” when they’d been wearing them or their alternate outfit for well over a season!) That, coupled with the fact that the five of them had been on the road for something like half a year without consistent access to medical care, left them with one choice: Branwen would take two of the kids shopping while she did check-ups on the other two. 

“What?” he dropped the armful of bags on the table and reached for his inner shirt pocket. “What the hell kind of logic is that?” 

“Can you tell if someone has a greenstick fracture versus a compression fracture without an x-ray?” Lumi countered while lugging a bag of fruit to the sink. 

He took a swig, grumbling. 

“Exactly,” she nodded. “Also, I think Oscar would feel better about getting to know everyone else if it was in a smaller group.” 

“Aaaaand there it is,” he tucked his flask away with a (fond) roll of his eyes. 

“What? There what is?” She followed him as he sauntered downstairs. “Branwen?!” 

He shook his head and the stairs opened into a large, empty training room where Ruby and the others were disassembling and cleaning their weapons. Oscar, new to training as he was, sat off to the side with a book and lit up when he caught her eye. He waved instead of their usual hug but she couldn’t fault him for wanting to look cool in front of new friends. 

“Oooh, the last name treatment?” Ruby called out with glee. “Someone’s in trouble!” 

“Nah, she’s just like that,” Branwen shrugged and deftly dodged a jab to the ribs. 

“Anyways,” Lumi side-eyed him as he leaned against the wall. “As great as it is to see everybody still in one piece, you’re all ridiculously overdue for a check-up so-” 

“Wait, who are you?” Nora planted a fist on her hip. 

“Lumi Hazelwood,” she dug the small stack of lien out of her pocket as Branwen snickered (the bastard). At her blank look, she racked her brain for a memorable interaction. “I helped you smuggle in that box of fireworks during your first semester at Beacon, remember?” 

Nora narrowed her eyes but by then Ruby had already leapt to her feet and thrown herself at the older girl. 

“Lumi!” She let herself get swept in a circle. “I didn’t know you were in Mistral! You look so different!” 

She laughed but didn’t miss the confused looks between the remainder of the group. “I could almost say the same thing. It’s so good to see you! I ran into that one,” she pointed her chin at the too amused looking Huntsman. “On the weekend and he told me to come by.” 

“She invited herself,” Branwen cut in. 

“Hush!” Ruby pointed a finger at him. “You were the one that let us all think you ran off to make kissy faces with some ra- oh. Wait...! Then that means-” she quickly swung her finger around to Lumi’s face. 

He clapped loudly. “Alright, we can play catch-up later! Two of you volunteered to go clothes shopping with me so decide quick or Lumi gets first dibs on victims.” 

“I’ll stay!” Ruby chimed at the same time as the blond (Jaune?) paled. “Victims?!” 

“Guess I’m taking Nora and Ren then.” 

They didn’t argue, though Jaune looked more freaked out at the thought of Branwen taking him shopping afterwards. The group busied themselves with cleaning up, chatting among themselves while Oscar edged around them and bumped his shoulder against Lumi’s. She smiled at him and ruffled his hair quickly. 

“Isn’t Chromatica coming over for tutoring soon?” Adorable hazel eyes met hers and she resisted the urge to pinch his cheeks and coo over him. Sure, it was only polite to ask about his classmate and sort of friend, but the fact that he did was still _so thoughtful_! 

“She has food poisoning, or maybe the flu- her text was pretty garbled- but either way she cancelled. Weren’t you curious when Br- Qrow didn’t show up for your morning jog?” She raised a brow. He’d met her at the grocery store so he definitely had a head start and someone should have noticed if their teacher suddenly disappeared. 

“Hu- Oh, uhm, yeah a little but I,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, it’s only been two days so...” 

“Ah, that makes sense,” she nodded. Even she couldn’t get into the swing of things that quickly. “Well, if you want you can stay here while Qrow goes shopping. I could use an assistant for my magic show.” She grinned at their inside joke. 

“Really?!” he nearly dropped his book. “Do you think I’m ready?” 

She shrugged one shoulder. “You can do bridges pretty easily so it should be fine- I'll handle Jaune by myself though, since he seems sort of freaked out still. Besides, I get the feeling that you’ll get in more than enough practice with this group while I’m at work so it’s fine to start now. That sound okay to you?” 

He nodded, cheeks flushed an eager pink, and bolted upstairs to wash his hands. Lumi shook her head with a grin. Oscar would be less excited when he saw the patient chart they had to fill out but she’d let him have fun in his imagination for now. 

She had assumed his interest in Healing would go right out the window when Branwen showed up, but she was capable of being wrong sometimes too. They’d have to talk about cutting back his lessons before he tried to fit both into a day and subsequently pass out, but that could wait. Team RNJR wasn’t going anywhere but clothes shopping in the foreseeable future so she had enough time to plan out what she wanted to say. 

With that, she hummed to herself and went to retrieve Rue’s medkit, wondering which instrument would cause Jaune to bolt the fastest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you lovely readers enjoyed! :) We're in the canon bit of the plot now (I even included a few lines from the show just for funsies) so hold onto your hats because all that fluff from before starts to make sense.
> 
> Let me know what you liked, your theories moving forward, or just keyboard smash in the comments- they all make me smile :)
> 
> See you next time!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Certain characters are getting fleshed out so try to keep in mind how X or Y might grow as a person before you get to thinking that I hate a character or what have you. Everything here has a purpose and that purpose is not bashing!
> 
> Summary so far: Qrow and RNJR made it to Mistral and reunited with Ozpin (Oscar)! Some people are trouble magnets and worry everyone around them, and may or may not be named Qrow.

Lumi was infinitely grateful that Rue wasn’t due back until the latter half of the month because if she’d been here to give RNJR their check-ups she would’ve had a heart attack. The kids had clearly tried their best, and aura had certainly helped, but that didn’t change the fact that professional medical care was _leagues_ superior to anything an amateur could do. (Lumi would know; Rue had given her that exact speech every time she found something Lumi had tried to fix herself. There’d been _a lot_ so she was pretty sure the words were imprinted on the inside of her skull.)

 Ren had mild nerve damage in his toes, Ruby had somehow forgotten she was supposed to take zinc supplements, Nora was ever so slightly deaf in one ear and Jaune had a spiderweb of quickly healed fractures along his arms consistent with pushing himself too hard  for too long  over the period of  _ a _ _ t least _ a few months. That wasn’t even counting the horrible purple scar that spanned at least two of  Qrow’s ribs or the fact that he’d been drinking and ignoring the doctor’s note she found tucked in the shirt he’d left at her place. 

 “C’mon chickadee,”  Branwen groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Don’t look at me like that.” 

 She turned her head away with a huff . 

 “Ugh, that’s even worse,” he groused. 

 Tough shit. 

 “... fine, you win.” He handed over his flask then begrudgingly unbuttoned his shirt. 

 She smugly pulled on a pair of purple nitrile gloves and patted the cot to her right. It had taken a few days of pestering over text (and in person) plus several threats to withhold food but she’d finally wrangled a promise out of the man that he’d let her work on his side. He, of course tried to get out of it at the last minute but considering that he couldn’t lift his right arm all the way up without wincing anymore\- well, he was going to have to grovel to get out of it. Even then she wasn’t opposed to a guilt-trip or two to sucker him back in. It was better (for his continued saftey) to give in before she added too many stipulations. 

 “It’s  not that bad,” she reassured him as he flopped down and threw an arm over his eyes. 

 “Are you even qualified to do this?” he asked and sat halfway up , the paper crinkling beneath him . 

 “I did it to myself and Rue signed off . ”  Sort of.  The older woman hadn’t been happy but she’d rather it happen with supervision so that was sort of the same thing, right? “Now lay down.”

 “Well she’s a sadist who would probably sell her kidney to see me like this,” he grumbled but complied . “And the fact that you don’t have any scars is weird as fuck.” 

 “Hush,” she pinched his arm (he tried to smack her away) and placed her other hand over the long, poorly healed ridge of scar tissue. 

 Rue had shown her the more effective way to numb an area but Branwen had stated in no uncertain terms that there was no way he’d let her temporarily paralyze him from the armpits down so she could work on an area smaller than his hand. She also didn’t have the skill to create and link two bands of her aura along his spine so only the area in between was numbed. This way burned more of her energy but it was familiar to both of them and so what she went with. It helped that the (unfortunate) call back to Signal comforted him (plus she had no heavy demands on her reserves lately) and she flooded her palm with neutral aura without complaint. 

 Her patient hummed and the tension drained out of his body. “ F’rgot how nice this part was.” 

 Considering that she had, unbeknownst her, accidentally knocked him out by partially matching and flooding his aura the first time, she was more than fine with letting him forget that entire experience. She pushed the memory from her own head- something for her future self to be embarrassed over when she tried to sleep tonight. Present Lumi opened a pack of sterile wipes and got to work cleaning the area, thankful that he couldn’t feel the motion through the haze. (He was ticklish and tall with pointy elbows... some mistakes you only made once.)

 “I know I’ve asked a few times already, but can you tell me your full name and birthday again?” she unwrapped the  brand new scalpel while he rattled off the information and another round of consent. “Thanks,  Branwen . Now, count back from twenty for me and try to breathe evenly...” 

 She understood why the wound from Tyrian had been healed so poorly - poison was incredibly hard to heal “pretty” when the venom was fresh much less when it’d had time to liquefy the patient’s organs - but they weren’t in danger anymore. More than that,  Lumi had the time, patience, and energy to speed up a few months of natural recovery into the span of a few hours spread over a few days. She owed it to him, at least in her eyes, to help him after all he’d done for her- especially after Beacon. 

 While  Branwen wasn’t the type to really  _ say _ it, she knew he appreciated this and his complaints these past couple of days weren’t as serious as his wording suggested. He’d also never hold the nice things he’d done for her over her head in exchange for a bit of cosmetic Healing, so she was doubly determined to make sure he walked away with a torso as pretty as a  p ic t ure .

 That in mind, she breathed out and steeled her spine then made the first light incision.

 

 **-[-]-**  

 

Nora side-eyed Qrow as he stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen with a jaw-cracking yawn. He tended to wake up an hour before Lumi came by and claim he’d only been napping after leading “the kids” on a morning workout for some reason. Lumi never seemed to really care, though Nora had caught her taking Oscar aside and asking him if Qrow was really helping him train- and that was weird for _so_ many reasons.  

 For one, Qrow didn’t usually bother checking in on their training because he was always out looking for other Hunters. For two, it was pretty obvious that cute little boy Oz was the one responsible for torme- uhh, training them. He even had entire pages in his journal dedicated to personalized workout plans! It wasn’t like he hid that fact either. What was even weirder was that Ozpin never showed his face (so to speak because body-sharing soul stuff) when Lumi was around or when they thought she would be coming around.  

 Now Nora didn’t actually remember a lot about Lumi from their Beacon days (aside from the time she helped her sneak in fireworks to celebrate Ruby’s sixteenth birthday) but she was pretty sure that Ozpin and Lumi didn’t _hate_ each other... or at least, she was sure until she asked Ruby one night after dinner.  

“Huh? No, she couldn’t _stand_ Professor Ozpin!” she looked around and lowered her voice to a whisper when she saw Oscar lead Qrow to the garden thing at the center of the house. “She didn’t say it out loud but she always got so _hissy_ when he was around, like a cat, ya know?”  

Nora didn’t know but she sure wanted to now! “Ooh really? Why?” And how could they live together now if they’d been like _that_? 

 Ruby nodded. “Totally. She told me it wasn’t a big deal ‘cause no one likes anyone that always gives them detention but she liked him tons before school started. Well, not _right_ before school started but...”  

 The more Ruby talked the more confused Nora became. Not because Ruby was confusing (because they’d walked miles together and she liked to think they were good enough friends that Ruby wouldn’t mess with her like this about THIS) but because more and more it sounded like Lumi just _didn’t know_.  

 And that was crazy. It was bonkers, abso-frickin-lutely bananas! It was wild; nearly beyond comprehension! It was- she could go on, but she was supposed to be doing maintenance on Magnhild and had nearly dropped another bolt. 

 There was no way Ozpin would have told Team RNJR about the shared soul thing with Oscar and not told Lumi. **No way**. They didn’t just live together, they _lived_ together. Oscar had breakfast with Lumi before she left for work and took leftovers for lunch. He went back with her every evening with a wide smile, jabbering away at a mile a minute unlike the few, polite words he gave the rest of them (even Qrow). He slept there and did laundry and hung out and... she hugged him. All the time. Patted his head. Had matching bracelets.  

 Lumi wasn’t even that nice to Qrow and they’d been friends for years apparently. She was more affectionate with Ruby, but not to the level she was with Oscar. Ruby got shoulder bumps and high fives and quick little side hugs. Nora, Ren, and Jaune got zilch. Qrow would whine for hours (in great detail) about some food he wanted her to pick up and she would just hum at him. All Oscar had to do was suggest eating something once and she hopped to her feet to get it.  

 When it came to closeness with Lumi, age wasn’t the issue. Gender wasn’t either and neither was the length of time they’d known each other. She was just _gentler_ with Oscar all around and it was as obvious as the nose on Nora’s face.  

 She’d gotten her most damning proof a week into their stay in Mistral. Lumi had stood stirring ramen on the stove when Oscar walked up and tucked himself under her free arm without any of the nerves he usually had when _talking_ to RNJR. In turn, she laid her cheek on the top of his head and they talked quietly. Not “shh we have a secret” quiet or “I’m actually really mad and I want you to listen to me” quiet but “this is just how we are” quiet. 

 So with how much they loved each other so she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of the other girl NOT KNOWING.  

 Ren, she knew, hadn’t picked up on it because she was the emotion-smart one and he was too happy to have regular access to running water and his fancy bath oils to care about much else. (To be fair she also loved the bath oils but- shhh she needed to focus!) Jaune probably hadn’t noticed because his grieving had picked up once they were safely in the city and he’d had time to rake up the memories of Pyrrha again with the information Qrow had given them. So really, that left her and Ruby. Ruby thought Ozpin and Lumi put aside their differences- but she still thought Lumi knew- and that was looking increasingly unlikely. Impossible even.  

 She really hoped this all didn’t come back to bite them. All she wanted was the chance to rest, to really rest, before either Lionheart or Qrow came calling with news of Hunters that would join them on their Very Important Mission to get and guard the Spring Maiden before Cinder could get to them.  

 Was that really so much to ask for? 

 

 **-[-]-**  

 

Oscar dabbed another circle of clear Dust onto his arm and blew on it to dry. Chromatica was advanced enough to get different types of Dust, which was just unfair because he was basically as skilled as she was with this, but Lumi had put her foot down about the Dust he could get into. Of course, he could always ask Qrow and say it was something Lumi had approved of...  

 “I would recommend against that,” Ozpin chimed. “For several reasons.”  

 Oscar grumbled and switched hands. Without prompting, the wizard detailed why exactly his plan was a bad idea and by the third point he waved him off.  

 “What are you _doing_?” Jaune called with a frown and Oscar jumped.  

 “O-oh, uhm, it’s called the Dot exercise,” he dipped his brush.  

 “What’s it for?” Ruby lowered her comic book and kicked her feet lazily.  

 “It’s a way to train aura,” Oscar sighed at the lopsided blob at the crook of his arm. “Well, aura control anyways.”  

 “Control?” she pushed up from the floor and shuffled over, comic tucked into the black hood of her sleeveless sweater. “Ooh, are you any good with it yet? My dad tried to make me and Yang do one of those once and she killed a tree.”  

 What? How do you- no, wait, he needed to focus.  

 “I think... I’m okay,” he half shrugged. “I guess.”  

 “How can you be anything but great at it with Ozpin knocking round your head?” Jaune followed, less enthused.  

 Ruby shot him a conflicted frown then turned back to Oscar with a _sparkle_ in her eyes. “Well?”  

 He jolted and his last dot turned into a checkmark. Still, the point of the exercise was to fine-tune control so he looked at it as a small challenge. Definitely not something bad enough to ruin the entire set up and make him start from scratch... Lumi would be upset about wasting that much Dust, besides.  

 He centered himself on that, breathed deeply, and activated his aura. It crackled into existence from head to toe and his arms _glow_ _ed_ then dimmed after a few seconds.  

 Jaune clapped, sarcastically, while Ruby clapped with cheerful enthusiasm. “Good job!”  

 “Oh no, that wasn’t it,” he closed his eyes and nudged a small thread of aura away from his shoulder. It responded easily enough, though it kept wanting to join the current of energy deeper in his arms, and he guided from dot to dot.  

 As an extra challenge, Lumi named each of the bones in the arm but Oscar couldn’t keep all the tiny wrist and knuckles bones straight so he skipped that. Judging from the faint “ooh, pretty” from Ruby and the grunt of begrudging approval from Jaune, he didn’t need to try that hard to impress the others even though he fell short of the mark Chrom made. They didn’t even know Chrom or this exercise before he showed them just now, so really, it was the most impressive thing they’d seen thus far... and that wasn’t saying much.  

 He got as far as one dot past his elbow before his control faltered and snapped. His aura shimmered again- back to being inactive.  

 “Where’d you learn that?” Ruby poked at the faintly green dot. After a few seconds it cleared up. 

 “Lumi taught me,” he re-activated his aura and tried the other arm. He got slightly less far, but it was his non-dominant arm so he expected as much. “She said her teacher used to make her do it during dinner and stuff, so it would become second nature.”  

 Jaune wandered off; back to sharpening his shield edges, Oscar guessed. Ruby stayed.  

 “Why?”  

 His aura shimmered off then on. “Uhm, it’s really important for a Healer to-” 

 “Healer?”  

 “Yeah, a Healer, like with aura and all that? Lumi’s, well, she’s not technically one because she’s only an Apprentice but-” 

 “Oh she’s an apprentice Healer?”   

 “Uh, no. Just an Apprentice,” he gave up on trying to do the exercise. “Through the Temples- the Maiden Temples that is; oh but not the Maidens like with Ozpin. The other maidens. Luna, uhm, uh... actually I don’t know the rest of them.” He bounced a knee in place. “I can ask Lumi to come over later and explain, if you want? She’s way better at that than me.”  

 They ignored Jaune’s grumble of “wow, shocker.” 

 “But wait, what’s the point of the dots?” Ruby dabbed a fingertip into the Clear Dust mixture. She flared her aura and the top of her finger glowed crimson.  

 “They’re to help you see where your aura is going,” he pushed the explanation out in one breath. “So you can get better control.”  

 “For healing?” She wiped her hand on a hand towel. The brushes Oscar was using rolled out. 

 “Mostly, but good aura control helps in other stuff too.” Is this what Lumi felt like all summer? He owed her the biggest apology.  

 “Like using Dust crystals in your shoes,” she smiled, pleased with herself. 

 “Wha- oh, well you _could_.” Lumi’s lessons on mastering at least a few levels of control before experimenting made more sense now. “Is... that how your sister destroyed a tree?”  

 Ruby dove into the details with all the mischievous glee of a younger sister finally getting to embarrass her older sister. She spared no expense when it came to Yang’s face or their dad’s face or the way the tree caught fire from the inside out and drew the neighbors in with great big black clouds of smoke.  

 Ozpin supplied a few memories of Yang at Beacon, most notably the girl’s latest attempt at using fire Dust in her boots. He’d never been more grateful that Glynda was overseeing that spar because repairing everything in that room would have shut the floor down for a week (or more) without her.  

 As Ruby finished up one story and launched into another, somehow pulling Jaune then Nora and Ren into a storytelling circle, he worked on the Dots and wondered just how Glynda and the rest were doing now.  

 

 **-[-]-**  

 

Lumi was looking forward to laying around in absolutely ragged house clothes and stuffing her face with chilled red plums while marathoning a movie or three. She was so looking forward to it that she even had it marked in her calendar: “Wednesday – chill tf out; 2pm to ALL DAY.” She was so looking forward to it that she left work during her lunch on Tuesday to do a load of laundry so her favorite lounging clothes would be clean and ready for her day of complete hedonism. 

 Oscar, however, had very convincing puppy eyes and swindled her into giving a sort-of lecture, sort-of demonstration, sort-of FAQ-type thing in return for doing the dishes for the rest of the week.  

 Which was why Lumi was wearing a borrowed set of ceremonial Mountain temple dance clothes and being fussed over by Nora while promising Branwen imminent agony with her eyes if he didn’t stop snickering _right now_.  

 “Isn’t that... heavy?” Jaune asked with a hand to his chin.  

 “A little,” she inclined her head, ignored the fact that he was wearing armor, and blocked out the sensation of Nora batting at the bells hanging from her hairpin. “But it’s supposed to be for a dance so the extra weight in the hem makes it flare better.”  

 “Do a twirl!” Ruby looked half a second away from whipping up a tornado with her Semblance if Lumi didn’t comply.  

 “I thought _you_ ,” she pinned Oscar with a look. “Wanted me to come over and answer questions about the Temples?” She twirled half a step back in exasperation away from Ruby and Nora’s combined poking at her belt of bells.  

 “Well,” Oscar rubbed the back of his neck. “This sort of counts...?” 

 Lumi resisted the urge to stuff _him_ into the outfit. “Sure, dear heart. Now does anyone have any actual questions or did I borrow this for nothing?”  

 “Why’d you get dressed up if you don’t want ‘em to fuss over it?” Branwen flicked her hairpin.  

 “Thank you, Qrow, for volunteering!” She clapped, grinned widely and watched him pale. “I’m sure everyone would love to know how to reset a dislocated shoulder!”  

 He shoved her and bolted out the training room door. She went down in pile of pleasantly tinkling skirts and growled.  

 “Ooh, he’s in tro-o-ouble,” Ruby stage whispered.  

 Lumi launched herself after him, revealing that yes she could run in heavy, layered skirts and yes, she did have Polaris on her (though she didn’t need it). He had longer legs, and far more experience evading bigger targets than mildly annoyed little old her. What he didn’t have was any use for the way the afternoon sun slanted the house’s shadow to cover half the yard- but she did. She shadow-stepped roughly where he would be and prepared the shadows at her feet to snag him even as he tried to turn.  

 He slammed into her and down they went, rolling straight from the dirt to the doorway then over the feet of whoever was unlucky enough to get caught in their path. Branwen was, if nothing else, kind of considerate when he wanted to be and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and head sometime between running into her and rolling across the ground.  

 She pushed herself up, dizzy, and smacked him with a palmful of aura in the center of the chest. He tried to protest and also push himself up but, well that wasn’t really possible at the moment for a couple reasons. The most important one being the bands of her aura blocking all sensation to his arms.  

 “So... that’s how you can use aura to take down a target,” Lumi said and staggered to her feet. “Oscar, you can fix him while I... go change.”  

 The boy nodded past his laughter and Branwen sent her a truly betrayed look.  

 “Also, there’s a memorial festival thing on Saturday and you’re all invited.”  

 Ruby had tears in her eyes, halfway to the floor, while everyone else was stuck somewhere between “shocked silence” and “that was sort of funny but I am REALLY confused.”  

 Lumi nodded and shadow-stepped home. At least Melinoe didn’t expect the clothes back for another few days. Plenty of time to wash, hammer and mend everything she wrecked in a thoughtless revenge plot.  

 Hopefully.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you lovely readers enjoyed! More previously set up plot threads become relevant and we are firmly in the unexplored area of canon now :) The kids finally get a break but at the cost of Ozcar's free-time. I'm sure nothing horrible is about to happen :D


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